Smith discusses Health Care Management
0Written By James Prouty
Saturday, Sept. 20, Dr. David A. Smith presented the need for universities to offer a health care management degree. His reasoning is that the current system that is in place right now is not as effective as it possibly could be, nor does it have the amount of people required to make it work.
Nationwide, there is a shortage of 50,000 physicians. Kentucky alone is missing 4,000 physicians. Not only is the field missing the professionals, but it also has been overstressed by mismanagement, inferior technology, and an outdated management model.
He referred to what is known as the “Iron Triangle,” which is what the customers of the health care profession expect out of the providers. Customers want improved quality, improved access and reduced cost. However, there are problems with the expectations of the current system. First and foremost is the problem with the lack of communication between the providers, suppliers and insurers. These departments have such poor communication between them, and that has much to do with the shortage of people.
A new degree offered in health care management could take a lot of stress off of the people who could be better used doing other things such as taking care of patients.
Sadly, there are only a handful of universities around the state that offer a health care management degree such as the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville as well as a few others. If a university were to start to offer a program for this, it could be started as early as August of 2015. This would provide a much-needed increase in the workforce and open up thousands of jobs nationwide. If a university instituted this program, it would be providing the county as well as the country with trained professionals. This, in turn, could give the industry the boost it needs to get itself out of its slump.