Allied Health World Home  |  Healthcare Administration  |  How to Become a Healthcare Admin

| | More

How to Become a Healthcare Administrator

By an allied health world contributing writer
Published:  February 2nd, 2010

Steps to Become a Healthcare Administrator

To become a hospital or healthcare administrator or manager, there are a variety of paths one can take. Below is an example of what could arguably be the smoothest path to becoming highly competitive in this exciting field.

1. Earn a bachelor's degree in business, finance, marketing, public health, or healthcare administration.
2. Earn a master's degree in Health Administration. The best type of degree is one accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME).
3. If planning on working in nursing care facilities or assisted living facilities, in many states a state licensure is required.
4. Seek a job in healthcare administration or management.
5. Earn a specialized certification such as the Fellow of American College of Healthcare Executives or the Registered Health Information Administrator credential. Oftentimes the criteria to sit for these exams includes a number of years of experience in this field.
6. Maintain any necessary continuing education units to maintain specialized certifications.

Learn more about the healthcare administration degree.

Other specialty areas within healthcare administration include: finance, government relations, medical staff relations, patient care services, human resources, nursing administration, purchasing, planning and development, and marketing/public relations. Within each of these specialty areas there are typically healthcare executive jobs available at all levels from entry-level manager to senior administrator.

Learn more about the healthcare administration certification.

What types of specialized healthcare manager positions are available?

In a hospital or clinic setting, typically managers and directors are employed over each field. For instance, there are health information managers who handle the security and maintenance of patient records, as well as handle process flow improvement. Maintaining electronic patient records is now required by the government, which means hospitals and other healthcare facilities must hire enough health information professionals to ensure security. Managers are needed to handle the administrative duties and supervision of these employees.