Healthcare is a demanding and rewarding profession. Substantial training programs or classes are necessary to receive certification. Accelerated learning schools that offer a program in healthcare administration can help you to complete your training in a shorter amount of time so that you can enter the field more quickly.Schools offering classes in healthcare administration prepare their students with applicable skills for the work environment. Students do not finish their education and wonder, “What do I do now?” (What does a person with a background in history go on to do? Most likely, something that doesn’t involve history.) Studying healthcare administration will lead students straight into a career, prepared and eager to begin.What does a healthcare administrator do?Many people who work in hospitals are not doctors. There are administrators working hard to enable those doctors to do what they do best: help people heal and recover. Doctors may be the ones who administer medication and perform complicated surgeries, but there are many other qualified people working in hospitals to make these facilities run efficiently. Healthcare administrators manage the daily functionality of a hospital, whether it is limited to a certain department or encompasses the whole facility.Healthcare administrators work in a fluctuating field. Procedures regularly change as technology advances and government regulations are enhanced for the patient’s and healthcare provider’s protection. Healthcare in the 21st century often involves more preventive care measures, which encourage change as well. Administrators evaluate current procedures and create methods for achieving objectives more efficiently.Depending on the size of the facility, there may be several other administrators with the same job functions, so a collaborative work environment may be necessary. If there are many administrators with many assistants, there may be more general responsibilities that need to be tended to or more specialized interests to focus on. Community outreach and preventative care are big. At a smaller facility, a healthcare administrator may do more detailed work.Generally, all administrators are responsible for the security of confidential records involving patients and staff. Administrators must be knowledgeable of the latest database software for healthcare, confident that the files they are maintaining are accurate, and aware of those who have permission to view those files.While some healthcare administrators work during regular business hours, some are on call and work longer hours, like those working in nursing homes. If there are multiple facilities as a part of a larger system, an administrator may put more hours into a work day as well. The hours will depend on the size of the facility and the amount of personnel on staff.What kind of education do you need to become a healthcare administrator?Many entry-level healthcare administrators have certification in a field such as healthcare administration. Some organizations will hire a person if he or she has had significant job experience rather than certification, but this will vary from organization to organization. Most organizations will require administrators to attend a training program and complete certification before joining their staff.An important aspect of being a healthcare administrator is possessing knowledge of management principles. You can learn these principles at various schools across the country offering the training program. As in many fields, there is fierce competition amongst those entering the healthcare profession, so the more experience you acquire, the more marketable you will be.Will training in healthcare administration lead to a solid career?If you are a responsible person, you can have the opportunity to build a successful career as a healthcare administrator. You will have expensive equipment to maintain and highly skilled people working around you, so it is imperative that you are able to function in a high-pressure, high-responsibility environment. A skilled administrator is able to take incomplete information and analyze it to make the best possible decisions. Administrators are able to apply data from budgets or databases in the implementation of their systems and procedures. An administrator is also involved in a lot of human interaction, so he or she needs to be able to communicate well with co-workers and with patients.The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects medical and health services jobs to grow 16% through 2006. In such an expanding field, capable people are needed to run the business side of the medical field, with a focus on efficiency. Someone who is able to find creative ways to cut costs while increasing the quality of healthcare will thrive in this demanding field — a field that encourages professionalism and helps people at the same time.