Introduction

Clearly, there are many reasons why health care in general is a very important aspect of our daily lives. Many people don’t tend to realize that healthcare just doesn’t consist of just doctors, but it also consists of dieticians, nurses, physicians, dieticians, and therapists. They all tend to play a major role into making sure that all people whether American or from a foreign country are maintaining their health. “An ounce of prevention is sometimes worth more than an ounce of cure” (Brown, pg 1). Even though many people may tend to think that theses jobs are easy, I believe that these jobs are not easy and require a lot of hard work, dedication, and also time in order to make sure that everyone is well taken care of. This paper will discuss the role of health care administrators in different settings, the future of health insurance, the role of administration in health systems and the role of managed care organizations.

The role of administration in the health system

There can be many roles for health care administrators because of the wide variety of possible settings they can take part in. I currently work for Catholic Healthcare West (CHW), a Health Care Organization (HCO), St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center (SJHMC) in Phoenix, AZ as a Senior Buyer in the Materials Management Department. CHW is a Catholic non-profit public healthcare enterprise consisting of over forty networks of clinics and hospitals delivering medical services in Arizona, California, and Nevada with 60,000 providers, clinicians and non-clinical support staff. Health care administrators in CHW are employed at all levels, top, middle, and entry.

SJHMC currently has two medical management committees, Critical Care Committee and Risk Management Committee that play a major role in administration for their health care system. The critical care committee evaluates the standard of critical care practice for various intensive care and emergency units in the hospital. This committee supports the continuous improvement of patient care at SJHMC through the ongoing and focused monitoring of key quality indicators. And the Risk Management Committee directs the design and implementation of all risk avoidance and management policies, procedures, processes and improvements, related to the following risk reduction activities, risk surveillance, risk prevention, risk control, and unusual occurrences. Identifying and analyzing key risk indicators at least quarterly avoids trends in patient injury outcomes and improves provider practice. They reach conclusions and take action for quality improvement to achieve greater success. There are other methods that these medical management committees can persuade the health care policy outside of the walls of their HCO. At SJHMC they collaborate with other community HCO to bring strength in numbers so their voice is heard. They create an environment that benefits the entire state with initiatives. They are also known to seek out interested third parties in the private sector to help donate to their cause in health care reform. In addition, the administration that is involved in these committees that are outside of their additional duties lead and actively participate in interdisciplinary quality improvement activities as a key contributor to the image and care SJHMC provides to the community. These committees exist to manage the quality and safety of patient care delivery. SJHMC depends on these administrative leaders to serve on these committees to provide leadership for measuring, assessing, and improving processes.