Thailand continues to earn a strong reputation in the field of quality healthcare management

With Thailand aiming to become Asia's main medical hub, all its health organisations need to adapt a more proactive approach in terms of quality, cost and access to care.

That's according to Dr Manyat Ruchiwit, Dean of the Nursing Faculty at Thammasat University and director of the university's international courses - a Master of Science programme and a Doctor of Philosophy programme in Healthcare Management programme. She goes on to say that the programmes' graduates are imbued with a thorough understanding of current technological advances in the modern world as well as leadership skills that allow them to initiate up-to-the-minute changes in healthcare management.

"Healthcare management cannot be administered in a principally profit-seeking manner," she emphasises. "Leaders must be highly trained but ethical. People deserve the right to choose a high standard health service.

"Research from an American study in 1997 showed there would be in shortfall in healthcare practitioners -doctors, nurse and so on - for the first 15 years of this century and that this would have a massive impact on society. The biggest shortage would be in the ninth year, which is 2009."

Manyat says that the reasons for deficit vary but include a declining interest in medicine as a career choice are that among young people, rapid changes in technology, over treatment and access to legislation, especially in the West.

"Today, a lot of unnecessary laboratories tests are carried out simply to prevent malpractice cases from arising," she says. "Students should be able to develop analytical skills and make ethical decisions related to healthcare management based on theoretical principles. They should also be able to provide services that are based on the health policies, laws, and the cultures of nations," Manyat notes.

The two-year course provides not only a through grounding on health systems, policies, legal frameworks and ethics, both at the national and global levels, but also helps develops business acumen. In this, the department receives assistance from the faculty of Commerce and Accountancy as well as the George Washington University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the World Health Organisation's regional office and the Pan American Health Organisation.

A former student in this field herself, Manyat notes that Thailand's clinicians, hospitals and administrators need to work continuously to increase their effectiveness in healthcare management.