Health Care/Hospital Administrator Skills List

Health Care/Hospital Administrator Skills List



•••

Share





Flip





Pin





Share





Email

BY ALISON DOYLE

 

Updated April 16, 2018

Health care administrators manage hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and other healthcare facilities. They also work for public health organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and other organizations. The healthcare administration field also includes managers of specific departments, such as admissions, or supportive roles. People generally join the field directly, rather than moving up from positions involved with patient care. As public healthcare needs increase, the field is expected to grow.

Becoming a Healthcare Administrator

No certification or license is required, but applicants must generally have completed a degree program specifically in healthcare administration. These exist at the bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. level. A bachelor’s degree is enough to get an entry-level job in the field, but advanced degrees may be required to rise beyond a certain point.

How to Use a Job Skills List

Required skills for healthcare administrator jobs vary depending on the type of position. Be sure to read the job description carefully before finalizing your application materials. This is a generalized list of skills that many employers in the field look for, and you can use it for initial preparation of template resumes and cover letters, which you can then fine-tune for each position you apply for. Here is a list of healthcare administrative skills.

General Administration Skills

Some aspects of healthcare administration are similar to an administrative job in any field. You are likely to have to handle budgeting and scheduling, meaning you must be able to handle software, such as Microsoft Excel, or its equivalent.

You will also need mathematical skills, for while the software does the actual calculations, you must be able to spot errors that result from incorrectly entered numbers, and you must understand the mathematical logic behind the structure of the spreadsheet.

You will also likely be involved in some form of marketing and promotion, as well as event planning and negotiation, all of which require excellent communication skills and the use of Microsoft PowerPoint for presentations.

Leadership Skills for a Hospital Administrator

Administration is largely about leadership, especially in relation to policy development, facility management, and strategic planning. You must be able to select goals that are reasonable yet challenging for the people involved, and supervise progress on those goals without micro-managing. You must facilitate meetings, which requires both assertiveness and the ability to fade into the background.

Free Guide: How to Build a Killer Resume

We'll email you tips to make your resume truly impressive.

ONE-TAP SUBSCRIBE

You must be able to negotiate buy-in from stakeholders within the organization and you must effectively motivate others. You will likely be involved in recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and training others. Sometimes you will have to discipline or fire people. Effective coaching is important, as is evaluating staff performance. All of this requires not simply excellent communication, but also empathy, humility, honesty, strong ethical parameters, and good personal boundaries.

Administration Skills and Knowledge Specific to Health Care

While healthcare administration does not involve direct patient care, it is still important to understand healthcare in a basic way. You must be able to analyze the relative costs of treatment alternatives, which requires understanding the ways in which various alternatives are (and are not) effective. To enact quality control, you must have a meaningful understanding of “quality” in a healthcare setting.

You cannot control costs without understanding which expensive procedures actually lead to better patient outcomes and when a simple, creative adjustment of a procedure can increase efficiency. To assess outcomes, you need not only data and analytical skill, but also enough knowledge of medical issues to put those data into meaningful context—and even to know which data you need to perform useful analysis.

Personal Qualities

In addition to hard skills and on-the-job experience, certain personal qualities, or soft skills are important for healthcare administration positions. These skills might not be addressed in training programs and they may or may not show up in job descriptions (some employers know to look for them, others might not), but they are necessary for doing a good job. The good news is they can be learned and improved with practice.

These soft skills include both collaborative and creative thinking, multitasking, and the ability to prioritize. Tact is a big part of effective leadership and teamwork. Time management is critical, especially when multitasking. Problem-solving and critical thinking is important, and you must be personally adaptable because situations change often. Exemplify all of this, and you can be the one holding the team together that saves people’s lives.

Administration Skills and Knowledge Specific to Health Care

The more specific your skills are for the job, the better. These skills and knowledge areas show off your experience in the healthcare industry.

Analyzing Costs of Treatment Alternatives





Compliance With Healthcare Regulations





Conducting Medical Facility Inspections





Developing Strong Physician Relationships





Ensuring Compliance with Regulations





Handling Confidential Information





Health Care Issues





Health Insurance Processing





Hospital and Physician Billing





Medicaid and Medicare Management





Medical Services Delivery





Resolving Patient Grievances





Treatment Services



General Administration Skills

Even if your experience is not specific to health care, these skills can be pertinent to healthcare administration jobs.

Budgeting, Developing Budgets, Controlling Expenses





Conducting Surveys





Computers, Such as Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint





Customer Service





Data Analysis, Assessing Outcomes





Event Planning





Facilitating Meeting Discussions





Marketing, Promoting





Operations





Quality Control





Scheduling





Research, Investigating, Reporting, Presenting





Negotiating Contracts





Purchasing





Supervising Billing



Leadership Skills for a Hospital Administrator

Leadership positions require proven ability to lead and direct others, and the following skills are especially important for such positions in the healthcare industry.

Coaching





Developing Policies and Procedures





Evaluating Staff





Facility Management





Financial Management, Managing Budgets





Fundraising





Human Resources Management, Recruiting, Interviewing, Hiring, Training, Terminating





Manage Performance and Service Goals





Increasing Productivity





Operations Management





Project Management





Service Program Development, Management, Planning





Strategic Planning



Personal Qualities

In addition to skills and experience, certain personal qualities are important for healthcare administration positions. Emphasize your own personal strengths from this list and how those strengths will make you the best candidate for the job.

Adaptability





Assertiveness





Attention to Detail





Collaboration





Critical Thinking





Drawing Consensus





Fostering Cooperation





Influencing Others





Interpersonal





Leadership





Motivating Others





Multitasking





Organizational





Prioritizing





Problem Solving





Tact





Time Management





Verbal and Written Communication



Hospital/Healthcare Administration Keywords

Here's an A to Z list of keywords and keyword phrases you can use when writing resumes and cover letters for hospital and healthcare administration jobs. Include the words or phrases that are relevant to the position you are applying for to help ensure your application gets noticed by hiring managers.

Advanced Excel User





Advanced User of Access





Adverse Events per 1000 Patient Days





Alleviated Shortage of Personnel in Key Areas





Attentive to Detail





Automating Processes





Average Cost of Discharge





Average Length of Stay





Bed Turnover





Capturing New Clinical Care Data





Claims Denial Rate





Clinical Quality Measures





Coaching Physician Executives





Conducting Comprehensive Evaluation of Options for Medical Records Systems





Conducting Departmental Operating Reviews





Consistently Positive Feedback Regarding Presentations





Cost Cutting Initiatives





Creating Compelling Presentation Visuals





Creating Financial Reports





Deployed Ambulatory Intensive Care Unit





Drawing Consensus





Establishing Technology Driven Home Monitoring Systems





Expanding Services for Chronic Care





Facilitating Meetings





Facilitating the Development of a Strategic Plan





Finesse With People





Implementing Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs)





Implementing Administrative Skill Development Programs for Leadership Team





Implementing New Processes for Infection Control





Inpatient Mortality Rate





Instituted New Quality Control Program





Instituting Incentives for High-Value Care





Insurance Coding





Integrated New Employees After a Merger





Leadership





Lowered Level of Liability Claims





Managing Physicians





Mapping Spending Projections





Minimized Waste of Supplies





Modifying Medical Records System





Negotiated Cost Saving Deal with New Vendor





Negotiated Union Contracts





Occupancy Rate





Operating Margin





Outsourced Emergency Medical Services Staffing





Overseeing the Implementation of a new Medical Records System





Patient Satisfaction





Process Improvements





Project Management





Providing Physician Leaders with Critical Data





Readmission Rate





Recruiting Top Talent





Reduced Number of OSHA Violations





Restructuring Compensation Programs





Retaining High-Level Performers





Serious Safety Events Per 10,000 Adjusted Patient Days





Solution Oriented





Terminated Underperforming Employees





Thwarted Unionization





Well Organized



 https://www.thebalancecareers.com/health-care-hospital-administrator-skills-2062403