My decision to launch a career in Health Care Management by joining this university was fuelled by the growing desire to serve the community through enabling efficient health care delivery and more so in modern exciting times in the field. Looking back to the time that I enrolled for the course as well as the expectations that I had then, I conclude that the time spent in training has been fruitful and has indeed superseded my expectations. At the time of entry for this postgraduate program, I was impelled by the feeling that my experiences as a child in hospital where I was recuperating from a disease and the attendant interaction coupled with my excellent interpersonal skills placed me at a vantage point of succeeding in the field. My stay here and training in Health Care Management has only confirmed this dream, added impetus to the desire and equipped me with the much needed skills as evident in my improved work ethic relating to health administration.
In this respect and during my training, my educational goals have been met in several ways. In particular, the training acquired in health informatics management, for instance, has shaped my whole view and attitude towards technology and the immense role it plays in enabling health care delivery. The course equipped me with skills on computer systems, high-performance computing and analytical and scientific databases which are critical for delivery of high quality health care in the modern world. My training in organizational behavior and human resource as a course was illuminating and critical to my development as a health administrator as it offered much needed insights on people management. Further, the study in organizational behavior helped me appreciate the impact that particular individuals or structures may have on behavior within an organization such as a health care institution. Consequently, the skills earned are essential in enabling me enhance individual performance, satisfaction and commitment among workers thus improving productivity and quality health care delivery.
Mention must also be made of my training in the course on strategic planning and leadership which was extremely informative as it shed light on the determination of the direction an organization could take strategically. It helped me know how to go about questions that are typical in management of institutions such as what should be done, for whom a thing should be done and how to do better in a certain field. It is crucial in enabling managers in the health care field as well as administrators map out or envision where a particular organization will and should be in a number of years. Moreover, the study of health care law enabled me appreciate the legal aspects of health care provision, ethics and regulatory authorities that govern the whole health care regime to ensure that a health care institution that one manages, lives to its legal obligations.
The most exciting course, however, turned out to be evidence-based management which emphasized on the need to make managerial decisions on the basis of the best available scientific evidence-namely knowledge of what actually works. The use of a practice that has been tested and proven to be correct in another organization becomes exciting when another organization is distinctly different in terms of age, form and size.
Currently, all the knowledge gained in the various courses under the health care management program as outlined above has been of immense value as of now. The knowledge obtained in strategic planning has enabled me outline and draft a strategic plan for the next five years in a health insurance firm where I am currently engaged as a health care executive. Similarly, I plan to deploy the various skills accrued in my training as set out above to emerge as a good health care administrator in future, moreso in the informatics management as a director of informatics management.
Regards,
Hadeel Abbasi
