6 Awesome Things You Can Do with a Healthcare Degree

There are plenty of jobs available in healthcare in a nearly limitless number of fields. You have the opportunity to work in administration, research patient care and more.

If you are someone who wants to make a major difference in the lives of others, and earn a good living, a healthcare degree can be a stepping stone to a very exciting future. Some of the most awesome occupations you can enjoy with a healthcare degree include the following:

#1 Healthcare Manager

A popular health care degree to earn is in healthcare management. This can be either a bachelor’s degree, or possibly a Master of Business Administration (MBA) with a focus on healthcare management.

Healthcare managers are responsible for budgeting, scheduling and looking for ways to improve patient care and improve efficiency. Most healthcare managers with healthcare management degree manage and coordinate healthcare services in nursing homes, health clinics and hospitals.

A healthcare manager also may be referred to in some places as a healthcare administrator.

Healthcare managers do not deal directly with patients, but instead shape policy that lead to better patient and operational efficiency.

#2 Health Informatics Manager

Many new MBA programs today have a speciality available in healthcare informatics. This area of healthcare will put to great use your abilities to effectively manage business operations and processes.

Professionals with a health care informatics degree or MBA in healthcare informatics know how to acquire, store, protect and retrieve vital health and patient information. You will know how to handle computerized and paper information systems in a hospital setting.

Applying healthcare informatics in a hospital setting has the potential to offer great benefits in efficiency and patient care. You may be able to decrease patient admission waiting times, reduce duplication of tests, and help administrators to staff departments efficiently by analyzing trends. These all are cost reduction measures that can make a big difference.

Another area of potential cost savings is in medical errors. The Institute of Medicine reports that medical errors cost $38 billion each year in the US. A skilled informatician can reduce those errors, and take labor-intensive administrative tasks out of clinicians’ hands.

Also, healthcare informatics is becoming extremely important, given the federal mandates for all patients records to be in electronic format.

Most health informatics professionals either earn an MBA with this speciality. Or, they also may decide to earn a master of science in health informatics, which can be earned online in approximately two years.

#4 Hospital CFO

A hospital chief financial officer has the major responsibility to ensure that the fiscal operations of the facility are smooth. CFOs must create strong business strategies, be good administrative leaders, and provide sharp analyses of financial policies that will make the facility competitive.

A hospital CFO is not just there to keep the books balanced: She is there to find ways to expand the facility’s opportunity to make a profit.

Many CFOs have a master’s degree in health care administration, or an MBA in healthcare administration. Some CFOs also have a strong background in accounting. These varied backgrounds are important to help a CFO handle complex problems.

A common challenge that CFOs confront today is declining utilization. As the quality of care improves, there are fewer complications, as well as fewer admissions and readmissions. To continue to make profits, some hospitals must deal with more very sick patients, which brings its own challenges.

#4 Nurse

One of the biggest demand fields in the US today is nursing. With a bachelor’s or master’s degree in nursing, you will have the opportunity to directly affect patient care. Also, you will will educate patients and the public about health care conditions, and provide emotional support and advice to both patients and family.

To become a nurse, a popular health care degree to earn first is an associate’s degree in nursing. This degree requires two years of study, followed by licensure. At that point, you can start to work as a nurse, and later earn your bachelor’s or even your master’s.

If your interests lie in both nursing and business, there are a few universities out there that offer a dual master of science in nursing and an MBA.

#5 Pharmaceutical Product Manager

Some healthcare MBAs go to work for pharmaceutical companies and choose to be product managers. This job title requires you to manage people and projects for a particular pharmaceutical product.

The pharmaceutical product manager determines price, brand image, distribution, sales forecasting and overall business strategy for the product line. Many product managers spend years of their career working on one drug product or a family of them.

Successful pharmaceutical product managers are skilled at satisfying both patients and the doctors who prescribe the drugs. One of the challenges of drug product management is needing to meet two different sets of expectations simultaneously. That challenge is a big reason that many professionals choose this particular line of work, as it can be very challenging yet rewarding.

#6 Epidemiologist

The field of epidemiology is a major part of the public health arena. Epidemiology is the science of the distribution and what determines various health care states and diseases, and how to apply this study to control those diseases and problems.

Epidemiologists view individual patients collectively so that the patterns can be seen and acted upon.

Epidemiologists try to reduce negative health outcomes as they recognize and research causes of diseases and injury among vulnerable populations.

They accomplish these tasks by conducting public health research. They develop and direct public health studies and analyze data.

To be an epidemiologist, you must earn your Master of Public Health (MPH).

Some common public health issues that epidemiologists work on include:

• Air pollutants and other common triggers of asthma
• What is causing a spike in food borne illnesses in a certain area
• Why some birth defects are occurring in a city or state more often
• Why a specific county has a higher rate of various types of cancer

Having the chance to make a major health impact on a large population is a major reason that some people choose epidemiology for their career.

Professionals interested in epidemiology and public health can earn both a master of public health and an MBA at many universities around the United States.