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Healthcare administration is a blanket term for a whole range
of career possibilities. Because there are many different
types of degree programs and specializations available to
students to choose from, trying to figure out if the healthcare
field is right for you can be a little overwhelming. To make
it easier, here are five reasons to consider earning a degree
in healthcare administration.
1. Healthcare Administration is a huge field, and
you can tailor your education to your interests.
Like computers and using the latest technology? Try a healthcare
technology program and end up in a career digitizing patient
records, overseeing a hospital’s intranet, or even designing
privacy systems. Interested in nursing or direct patient care?
Some healthcare administrators oversee hospital departments
like oncology and radiology, while others coordinate staff
and develop standard rules and procedures for delivering care.
More interested in numbers and accounting? A hospital or clinic
billing department would love to have you. It doesn’t
matter what you’re interested in; healthcare administration
has something for you.
2. You can use both your organization skills and
your medical training at the same job.
For a medical assistant, nurse, radiographer, or other healthcare
worker, earning a healthcare administration degree can be
the key to a promotion. If you love what you do, but you want
to take the next step in your career, healthcare administration
can be a way to do your job with more responsibility and a
higher pay grade. Plus, you’ll have the opportunity
to use your other talents like your organization skills and
your business savvy at work.
3. You can work in a field that helps people without
doing gross medical stuff.
If you’ve always thought you would make a great doctor
or nurse because you have a ton of compassion for people in
pain but you pass out at the mere thought of blood, you can
still work in the medical field. Healthcare administrators
often work behind the scenes to write the policies and make
the budgets, and they still take pride in knowing they’ve
helped people get the care they need.
4. Healthcare administration is a great field for
tech-savvy computer geeks.
Computer and technology-oriented people who desire careers
in networking, software development, and database administration
often overlook healthcare technology as a career possibility.
Hospitals, clinics, nursing facilities, and even private practices
need computer people. Most hospitals now have their own private
intranets to transmit information from one department to another.
Patient records are going digital. While other companies are
laying off their tech teams, the health care industry is hiring
folks to get and keep them online.
5. Healthcare administrators are in demand AND make
good money.
All types of healthcare administrators are needed right now.
The field of healthcare administration is expected to grow
16% through 2016, with most new jobs being in practitioners’
offices and in home health care agencies. Traditionally, most
healthcare administration jobs are located in hospital settings,
and these positions garner the highest annual salaries. Hospital
healthcare administrators earned $94,040 on average in 2008.
Other types of healthcare management positions also pay very
well. For all positions, the average annual salary was $88,750.
To get started, see the directory of schools that offer Healthcare
Administration Degree Programs
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