What Does a Hospital Administrator Do?

A hospital administrator is the head of business operations or CEO of a hospital or a medical center belonging to a large hospital chain. He interacts with the resident doctors, physicians and medical staff and ensures that resident patients seeking medical care and treatment are taken care of properly. The administrator is entrusted with the responsibilities of running every operation, business process and activity related to the hospital efficiently and productively. Depending on outlined roles, a hospital administrator can be a specialist or generalist.

Run Business Operations

A hospital is run like a small or medium-sized business operation and follows conventional business practices. A hospital administrator as the head of business operations has to ensure smooth running of the hospital. Vital business aspects encompass human resources recruitment and selection, allocation of finance and budgets, establishing procedures and practices, managing computer databases and systems and allied organizational activities. She interacts and co-ordinates with staff members, personnel and other employees and apprises them of their roles.

Address Medical Teams' Needs

Resident doctors, physicians, surgeons and nurses, health-care technicians, pharmacists and nursing assistants are the key to the delivery of quality health care to patients. The hospital administrator interacts with the extended medical staff and allocates its schedules for primary care, treatment, recovery and rehabilitation of patients. He addresses their need for quality medical supplies and equipments and ensures that they are able to perform their duties towards patients diligently, professionally and ethically. At times, the administrator may co-ordinate with consultants and external specialists for medical emergencies and specialized operations.

Ensure Patient Care

A hospital administrator is ultimately responsible for the well-being, medical care and quality treatment of the patients in the hospital. He has to guarantee the availability of quality facilities and amenities for all patients. He encourages and motivates the medical teams and their members to perform their assigned roles and responsibilities to the best of their abilities. He helps streamline patient fee schedules, billing procedures and smooth discharge of patients and also takes rounds of patient rooms and facilities to personally address concerns or needs, if required.

Negotiate with Vendors and Suppliers

A hospital administrator has to interact and liaise with numerous vendors, suppliers, insurance firms and contractors. He ensures that the hospital is stocked with medicines and drug supplies, food items, hospital equipment and machinery, health care technical systems and gadgets. This critical responsibility ensures that the specialized needs of doctors and allied medical staff and medical care needs of patients are not compromised. He has to possess good negotiation skills to sew up complex contracts and leverage purchasing power with vendors and allied partners.

Additional Responsibilities

The administrator reports to the governing board or trustees of the hospital about operational aspects, submits reports and undertakes review of policies, frameworks and budgets. The hospital administrator establishes research programs, preventive medicine and outreach activity programs for community welfare. He represents the hospital to various external audiences and stakeholders and also participates in community welfare and neighborhood health care advocacy activities.

References

• World Wide Learn
• Princeton Review: Hospital Administrator

Resources

• American College of Health Care Administrators