We often change careers in order to find fulfillment in what we get up every morning and have to do to pay our bills. It’s a truly rare privilege to get paid while contributing to the greater good, but that is what healthcare administrators often find in their line of work. Indeed, armed with education like a master degree in healthcare administration, individuals who seek to manage at hospitals, medical clinics and offices, hospices or work within pharmaceuticals and health insurance companies are making a real difference at the local, state, federal and even international level, whether or not we realize it. Here are a few examples of the significant contributions healthcare admins make – and have made – in all of our lives.

Keeping the Public Informed

Far from just pulling numbers out of thin air and reporting them, healthcare administrators are often the individuals who arrange for studies, trials and polls to be performed, so that from them we can glean research and data about the health issues affecting us, whether it’s on the national level or as local as your state, county, city or even township. Once analyzed, administrators decide the best and most meaningful ways to present it to the public, so that we can apply it to our daily lives.

Making Sure Our Hospitals and Clinics are Run Efficiently

This might seem like a no-brainer, but real hospital administration was nonexistent before the late 1800s. Now administrators seek to streamline processes that make both management and the patient experience as efficient and convenient as possible, while also keeping the hospitals and clinics on-budget (and therefore open).

Organizing Disaster Relief

When disaster relief is in the hands of capable healthcare managers, we know it. From hurricanes to tornados to flooding and extreme heat waves, public health administrators in particular organize large-scale healthcare relief efforts to save as many lives as possible.

Advocating for and Administering Healthcare in Third-World and War-Torn Countries

Taking their skills and expertise international, some individuals take on healthcare administration jobs that send them around the globe, delivering health to people in countries whose governments cannot provide the necessary services, such as African nations where women’s health is otherwise unavailable entirely. Some administrators who cannot go, yet still believe in the justice of their cause, advocate for the funds necessary to prepare and send others to help.