Hospital Consultants


Hiring a hospital consultant is a good way to improve the quality and efficiency of your hospital's patient care services. Consultants can bring a fresh and impartial perspective to the problems and concerns of everyday management, and provide expert advice and insight for future improvement to a business that is already successful. Hospital consultants are professionals who generally have strong backgrounds in both the business and healthcare industries and the requirements for each. Some offer generalized consulting services, while others specialize in certain areas, such as hiring, productivity, cost management and reduction, or public relations.

Some of the potential areas in which hospital consultants can help improve your business and patient care strategies include: introducing more effective marketing and public relations tactics, improving employee relations and productivity, improving and streamlining recruitment, hiring, and training practices, checking for HIPAA compliance, exploring investment strategies, improving record-keeping systems, improving patient care strategies, and controlling and streamlining expenses.

The conditions and requirements for each consulting job differ depending on the needs of the individual hospital, but generally speaking, consultants are responsible for conducting a survey of the areas or practices they have been hired to work on, presenting recommendations for improvement, and working with the hospital to implement and establish those recommendations. Depending on the project, consultations can last for days or years.

Hiring Tips

When hiring any type of consultant, it pays to do your research and to be familiar with your goals in hiring the consultant. As in any industry, some consultants are more able than others, and a consultant that works wonders for one hospital may be inadequate for another that has different goals and needs.

Hiring a healthcare business consultant can be complicated by the industry's lack of regulation, which can make it easier for incompetent or unqualified consultants to be hired. Fortunately, there are a number of organizations, including the Institute of Certified Healthcare Business Consultants, the National Association of Healthcare Consultants and the American Association of Healthcare Consultants, that seek to remedy this problem by providing credentials or certification for healthcare industry consultants, as well as assistance to hospitals seeking an appropriate consultant.

These organizations also provide an industry code of ethics that their members are required to adhere to. When hiring a consultant, be sure to request references and talk, if at all possible, to former clients of the consultant or firm to get a better idea of the potential consultant's strengths and weaknesses. Avoid consultants that have a clear conflict of interest, make promises without backing them up, lack industry experience, or offer “discount” consulting services.

By Kerry Given           


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