The successful hospital administrator draws on two different skillsets to excel on the job. The first are job-specific technical skills that can be taught and learned during college training. The second are abilities that some candidates may already possess – or will work to develop over time and through experience.
Read on, and you’ll discover that the best hospital administrators are:
Good With People
Hospital administrators work with professionals from diverse educational backgrounds, including graduates of nursing programs and online cardiology technician training, and in larger hospitals, mental health worker program graduates. Administrators must be able to coordinate with all medical personnel while communicating effectively with patients from all walks of life and cultural backgrounds. Clearly you need to be a people person to succeed in this profession.
If you do have good interpersonal skills and enjoy using them, you’ll find working in healthcare particularly rewarding. Whether you’re coaching a new colleague or soothing an anxious patient, there’s never a dull moment for the administrator who truly loves helping others.
Excellent Multitaskers
Any successful career in business administration requires the ability to multitask. Hospital administration is no different. The many important tasks you will have to perform and supervise would be impossible to handle without the ability to efficiently manage several things at once.
For example, you just paged a doctor. While you’re waiting for her/him to call in, you start filling out an important form you know the doctor needs. Then a patient arrives. You direct the patient to the right ward and then the doctor calls back. You attach the form you were working on to a clipboard, ask your assistant to take care of the patients who have just arrived, and head off to the elevators. Three floors and a hallway later, you’re in front of the doctor and the form is complete. You hand it to her/him and return to your desk.
Hospital administrators know when to delegate a task, how to manage their time wisely, and can juggle several responsibilities without making serious errors. These professionals can keep calm and carry on no matter how busy their schedule gets!
Computer Literate
Hospital equipment is most definitely of the high tech variety. Some of the machines used to treat and scan patients are truly state of the art. It makes sense, then, that technology is used heavily in the organization of that equipment, the people who run it and those who benefit from it.
To work as a hospital administrator, you need to be computer literate. The specific programs you will be required to use on the job vary from hospital to hospital, but the fundamental skills remain the same. You enjoy learning new programs and software, and aren’t afraid to ask for help when it’s needed.
Respectful of Confidentiality
Personal medical histories are confidential. They should remain between the patient and the doctor unless the patient indicates otherwise.
There are some other medical professionals, however, who will inevitably need to see some of this personal information in order to perform their jobs. The hospital administrator is one of them. Therefore, to be successful in this career, you must be willing to honor and respect the confidentiality of patient records.
What else do you think it takes to be a successful medical office administrator? Please let us know in the comments.
