Karachi: Institute of Business Administration-Karachi introduced Post-graduate Diploma (PGD) program, in Healthcare Management (HCM), for doctors and healthcare professionals recently. The Program in healthcare management (focus in Hospital Management), leads to EMBA in healthcare management and has been designed in consultation with leading hospitals. Responding to the healthcare needs in Pakistan and to tap the booming health industry the program came into existence last year. It is affiliated locally to Indus Hospital, Memon Medical Institute and Tabba Heart Hospital. Internationally, the program is affiliated to American Institute of Healthcare Quality and Madinah Institute of Leadership and Entrepreneurship. "The demand for doctors trained in management far outstrips the supply.” The requirement has grown manifold over the past few years, with industries such as pharmaceutical, biotech, medical equipment and healthcare growing rapidly. Domain knowledge in medicine as well as expertise in product management, brand safety, marketing and finance is important. Companies in pharma, biotech and medical equipment now prefer to have doctors with business expertise. There is also a spurt in demand for this category of people with the rapid expansion of healthcare industry and setting up of hospital chains that are becoming more complex to run. "The institute aims to be a leader in healthcare management education and seeks to introduce well defined processes into the marketing of the healthcare segment and hospital administration in Pakistan and help bridge the gap by offering well trained professionals for the hospital operations management industry.” Keeping everything in mind IBA recently organized the launching ceremony of their 2nd batch of Post-graduate Diploma (PGD) program, in Healthcare Management (HCM). The ceremony started after recitation from the holy Quran. The opening remarks were given by Dr. Izhar Hussain (Director Centre for Executive Education) outlining the role of IBA in healthcare and the importance of hospital management program. This was followed by a presentation by Dr. Minhaj Qidwai (Program Director) highlighting the status of health and related issues in medical education in Pakistan. He also gave an overview of the program and the need for development of professionals for better management of hospitals. Later Mr. Haroon Qasim (MD- Pharm Evo) gave a key note speech titled “Achieving Operational Excellence through Good Hospital Management”, specifying the key factors in good governance of the hospitals, followed by speech of chief guest Mr. Shabbar Zaidi (Territory Senior Partner and Chairman A. F. FERGUSON & CO.). His topic was “Role on Good Management Implications on Healthcare with special focus on Hospital Management”. He stressed the role of academic institutions and the need of collaboration between Government health department and institutions. The program was followed by a question and answer session.
