I have a DREAM--how to run a hospital [View all]
for how to educate hospital administrators in the future. ALL of them. It goes like this.
There will be no such thing as a degree in Health Care Administration unless it includes the following:
As part of the curriculum, all students will have clinical as well as classroom education. Clinical education will be taught by nurses with advanced degrees and adjunct faculty in the following areas: radiology, laboratory, dietary, transport, and housekeeping. Students will, as part of this clinical education, serve in each department, either in direct patient care or by shadowing, and each student will show competency and be graded accordingly.
1. Each student will be certified as a nursing assistant and will work for 2 full semesters as a CNA, 4 credit hours per semester; supervision by clinical instructors and nursing personnel, just like nursing students get. This will be a lab course, so 8 hours per week.
2. As to other departments, each student will shadow skilled personnel in lab and X-ray (1 semester) and will work under the direction of adjunct faculty in dietary, housekeeping, and transport (1 semester)
3. Each student will spend one full year shadowing nurses in all departments (2 semesters) under the direction of nursing
clinical instructors.
Only then, and after all the classes in finance and administrivia, will they be fully qualified to understand how a hospital really runs.
We'd need a whole lot fewer "assistant CEO's"!