Public health administrators pair a managerial and organizational approach with public health knowledge, which is used to develop wide-scale programs for public well-being and to manage public health facilities.
The administration aspect of public health administrators includes planning, budgeting, coordinating, supervising, and evaluating results. On the other hand, the health aspect contains elements like disease prevention programs, health education, and welfare.
The US allocates nearly 18% of its GDP to healthcare, the highest healthcare spending in the world. The reason for high levels of public health investment is that it is vital to any developing community. It’s the job of public health administrators to assess the community’s health needs, develop programs, and promote welfare to provide public health-the following is how they achieve that.
Management of medical services
Public health administrators work closely with doctors and nurses. They collaborate with hospitals, manage work schedules and finances, and keep records of patient billings. They streamline the work processes of healthcare providers and increase the quality of service.
Public health administrators mostly operate behind the scenes and aren’t part of the front lines in the hospital. This creates issues when the medical facility has specific needs to meet because public health administrators have to consult doctors first and then develop practical solutions. The lack of medical experience, however, can be solved by advanced healthcare administration programs like online masters of public health programs that impart similar knowledge to that found in medical degrees. Gaining relevant background education enables administrators to quickly make decisions without wasting time on consultation.
When efficient public health administrators manage medical services, healthcare becomes more accessible due to quick administration processes. More individuals get the opportunity to gain quality healthcare services and eventually promote community health.
Health education
Public health administrators work to promote community wellness through education campaigns. They take on the role of public health outreach specialists and provide resources and programs which highlight the significance of both physical and mental health. This role includes the managerial aspect of planning a budget, supervising employees, and deciding how to market health education programs.
Some examples of public health outreach campaigns are health fairs, breast cancer awareness campaigns, and community fitness plans. Community health campaigns get people to talk about public health issues like obesity, anxiety, stress, and STDs, which helps spread awareness.
Health education through public outreach helps all communities thrive and lowers the cost of healthcare, decreases the healthcare gap, and supports those who don’t have access to such rights and services.
Health education also helps practitioners and communities get a better understanding of the disease processes that affect them the most. The disease model of addiction, for instance, posits that substance abuse is not a function of character but a progressive brain disease. It is now the dominant accepted theory among a significant swathe of the medical and scientific community but remains little understood by the community at large. Most medical practitioners do not understand prophylactic treatments, focusing instead on pharmacological approaches that don’t work.
Public health collaboration
According to the CDC, collaborations in health promotion programs are important to utilize the resource, enhance capacity, and increase marketing. Public health administrators work with other healthcare professionals and share responsibility and resources to formulate plans for health promotion and patient care.
Healthcare collaboration decreases the chances of error and reduces public health costs. The exchange of skills and information also improves patient experience, which can have a positive effect on HCAHPS. Overall, the improvement of patient-centered care helps provide equal healthcare opportunities to those members of the community suffering from healthcare gaps.
Disease prevention programs
Disease prevention programs are highly specific population and individual-based interventions that provide primary and secondary prevention of diseases. Primary prevention avoids the onset of disease. Secondary prevention involves detecting the disease in its early stages, which increases positive outcomes on health. Disease prevention helps reduce the risk of chronic illnesses, disabilities, and death. Urgent care STD test plays an important role in disease prevention.
Disease prevention programs allow individuals to lead good and healthy lives. Prevention is also better than cure, and these programs reduce the burden on the health budget. It improves the availability of healthcare and also reduces health disparity.
Conduct an assessment of health needs
To better understand their target audience, administrators collect, analyze, and evaluate the health needs of a community. The primary data sources are responses to surveys and questionnaires, but administrators can dive deeper by looking into secondary sources like demographic data.
The purpose of data collection is to assess the most prevalent health concerns in a community and identify their health needs to plan effective and relevant health campaigns.
Healthcare consulting
Healthcare consulting involves providing expertise to pharmaceutical, biotech, and health insurance companies on how to deliver healthcare efficiently and effectively. Administrators improve healthcare quality through healthcare consultations.
It helps provide patient satisfaction while also maintaining profits for companies. Healthcare consulting saves a company time and resources, thus improving efficiency, as the company gets an objective and accurate assessment. It also improves infrastructure. It ensures patient safety and improves customer satisfaction by identifying problems and providing pragmatic and creative solutions. It helps companies get a better understanding of patients’ behavior and also increases patient engagement.
Promote health in all policies
A public health administrator sees the potential of health promotion in all policies and enables communities to view how policies like transport or park funding influence public health. Other policies that affect health can include no smoking zones in public spaces, healthy food alternatives in vending machines, and a tax on unhealthy fast-food chains.
The awareness of how policies can affect public health lets communities decide which policies to embrace and which policies they should pressure the government to change. Administrators can also help in policy development to promote social welfare and improve healthcare accessibility.
Health and safety engineering
Public health administrators can also work to minimize risk. Health and Safety Engineering involves the development and maintenance of safe work systems for employees. As technology becomes more advanced, the need to conform systems to being safer also increases.
Health and Safety Engineering prevents work-related injury, ill health, or death. It plays an integral role in the protection and promotion of workplace health. It involves the inspection of facilities, machinery, and safety equipment to identify and eliminate dangerous situations in both workplace and public environments. Increasing safety helps reduce business costs, increase employee well-being, and better the work environment, ultimately proving profitable for a business owner.
Conclusion
Public health administrators ensure fair, effective, and quality healthcare services are provided to members of their community. It’s a highly rewarding job with a huge responsibility. Without the proper administration of health facilities, the healthcare gap would only increase.
Every aspect of a public health administrator’s job is to serve people and give back to the community through health programs, education, and social welfare. It is administrators who create a multitude of nonprofit organizations to promote community wellness—they are crucial to the perseverance of a community.
