Health care management and health facilities management are two complementary aspects of a similar life discipline. The first is the management of the system, the creation of conditions for the proper functioning of medical facilities, hospitals and clinics so that they can fulfil the tasks set before them. For this, it is necessary to build a legal framework, rules for mutual cooperation, rules for cash flow and to decide on the shape of the health care system. Who finances health services (the state or the citizen himself), under what conditions, on what terms and in cooperation with which intermediaries (single or multiple payers).
The second notion concerns the healthcare institution itself, operating in the healthcare market. Its focus will include aspects such as resource management (including human resources, finance, infrastructure, and time), raising funds for operation, building relationships with stakeholders (including political stakeholders) and, what seems often underestimated, building relationships with patients, direct or indirect recipients of health care services.
The functioning of healthcare systems and healthcare entities worldwide is subject to similar principles, such as the need to care for patients while they require medical services, to carry out preventive actions, and to initiate organisational and technological innovations. In order to cope with these tasks, the medical establishment and the developers of the health care system must draw on the experience of people, managers, and practitioners, for whom health care is not just one area of interest, as it has been proven time and time again that it is different from other areas, such as banking or industrial production. Health care managers, as professionals who are able to navigate the conditions of the health care market, often deregulated by health policy systems, know how to meet both the needs of the patients they care for, the staff they employ, but also the organisational environment of the hospital or clinic. This difficult art is often failed by those who do not understand the specifics of medical management.
