The Role of Health Administration in Communicating Public Health Risks and Guidelines

The community needs to know what they're up against, so they can protect their health better. Within the healthcare sector, you play a pivotal role in communicating these public health risks and preventative guidelines from which the public can benefit. 

Therefore, you manage, oversee, and organize healthcare facilities such as hospitals and clinics as a health administrator. Furthermore, responsibilities such as policy development, strategic planning, and budgeting also fall on your shoulders. This is why to do your job well; you need to understand the significance of your role; here's a glimpse:

Why Does Public Health Awareness Matter?

Public health is all about assessing the community health at large. It helps the population learn about possible disease outbreaks, allows them to prepare for emergencies such as a potential pandemic, and get early screening for high-risk illnesses like cancer. As a health administrator, you will work closely with the community by designing programs and implementing policies to guide the community's health management. 

Health administration allows you to set public health goals; you can dictate the improvements you wish to see within the local population. These include educating them about infectious diseases, curbing the spread of a virus through herd immunity, and investing in programs that make health care more accessible. People need to learn how to manage their well-being better.

For this reason, if you want to be an asset to the community and support healthcare facilities in doing their job, consider getting a post-grad degree in your field, given the intensive work you have to shoulder. You can easily acquire a master of health administration online instead of opting for conventional schooling. Online degrees are as robust and lucrative as traditional degrees, except you have far greater flexibility in managing your curriculum and studying at your pace.

What Goes On In Health Administration?

As a health administrator, you will be responsible for several tasks, such as overseeing hospital administrative operations and working with communities to develop outreach programs. While this is a general overview of your role, below is a much more detailed description of what you should expect:

•  Circulate Information

The public need guidance so they can prepare against health risks accordingly. As a health administrator, you must ensure that your information is accurate, current, and contains details on what the community should do. For instance, during the pandemic of 2019, little was known about the coronavirus. But, once hospitals, public health experts, and various medical institutions began investigating and studying the disease by watching the prognosis of this virus, they could inform the public of their next steps. Ultimately, this led to a wide distribution of the vaccine, and the harmful effects of the disease were curbed significantly. 

This is precisely what you will have to do. As a health administrator, anytime you learn about a community risk, you will have to go the extra mile to talk about it by gathering details from other health experts and medical bodies. Once you have plenty of information, you must post it online, highlight it on the media and issue a press release to educate the public further.

• Work With Stakeholders

You can't manage the entire healthcare sector alone, so you must learn how to work with stakeholders. The medical industry is one of the biggest in the US. Apart from doctors and nurses, it comprises government agencies, health insurance companies, and non-profit organizations. As a healthcare administrator, you must work with all these bodies to ensure healthcare outcomes. 

This is best illustrated through an example. While working with health insurance companies, you can update coverage policies and introduce new clauses into their current healthcare plans. Likewise, you will confirm that the insurance companies follow the proper billing procedure and resolve timely claims. If the insurance company refuses a claim, you must settle the dispute and get fair compensation that benefits your organization and the company itself.

Furthermore, government agencies also look to you for guidance. As a health administrator, your insight into the healthcare sector allows you to work on state, federal, and local policies. These include arranging funds, establishing new health programs, and issuing healthcare laws to medical institutes.

• Supervise Administrative Tasks

On an institutional level, you still have a massive role to play in healthcare. Hospitals and clinics need to work in an orderly manner. This entails strict management from top to bottom to ensure the work is carried out seamlessly. As a health administrator, part of helping the public is ensuring that medical institutes look after them well. You are directly responsible for hiring and letting go of staff; where you need a new nurse or more physicians, you can make the judgment call on whom to hire. 

The finances and budgeting of the hospital also come under your jurisdiction. This can be overwhelming to handle since the limited funds you receive needs to get utilized in updating the hospital tech, introducing a new department, creating new jobs, and improving the outdated infrastructure.

Additionally, it would help if you also designed hospital protocols. In case an outbreak happens, you have to lay out the steps your healthcare facility has to take to ensure they stem the disease before it spreads. This includes how to quarantine a patient, tests to carry out, PPE needed on site, and how to manage symptoms.

• Arrange for Public Health Campaigns

Educating the public about health risks is a constant endeavor. Working in health administration, you will need to create public health campaigns occasionally to raise awareness, educate community members and motivate them to take up a healthier lifestyle. There are numerous types of campaigns that you can advocate, including discussing nutrition and physical fitness, emphasizing mental health, or instructing the local body about disease prevention. 

Public health campaigns are often extensive and require substantial funding. This is why before you can launch a campaign, you will have to meet with government officials to get approvals, arrange for resources, and secure funds that you can funnel into these platforms. Depending on how much you invest in a campaign, you can simultaneously arrange a free consultation session for people attending your health drive.

Final Thoughts

Taking care of a population is hard work. This is especially true because communities are always at risk of a public health outbreak. Therefore, as a health administrator, your job is cut out for you. To prevent a national crisis, you must educate, collaborate, guide, and arrange for facilities to help the population better look after themselves. And this is why you must get the necessary degree and steadily work your way through building awareness about health-related problems. Your effort will pay off as mainstreaming information will spread awareness among the local population, motivating them to get more vigilant about their health.