Statement of Purpose

Posted: January 4th, 2023

Statement of Purpose

Name:

Institutional Affiliation:

Statement of Purpose

I have become increasingly interested in healthcare administration after interacting with various healthcare organizations and noticed the challenges they were experiencing amid resources scarcity and the high demand for quality healthcare services. I have realized that hospitals and clinics have highly-qualified and professional medical personnel, but lack leaders to shepherd them through the rapidly-changing healthcare environment. My interest in healthcare leadership and administration has been developing gradually I worked with Central Buraydah Hospital in Qassim and Western Turaif Clinic in Turaif before that where I was interning as a nurse and thereafter at Marshal university in 2020. My country, Saudi Arabia, has a wealth of highly qualified doctors, clinicians, and nurses that have been trained locally and abroad, but are operating in an environment characterized by rapidly evolving technologies, changing laws, and increasingly demanding patients that have an enhanced health-seeking behavior. While the Saudi hospitals are fairly well equipped, administrators are often challenged by allocating resources, ensuring that their healthcare organizations adhere to the highest standards of healthcare practices, and keeping abreast with the latest developments in healthcare services and converting such evidence into practice. For this reasons, I have sharpened by skills by acquiring experiential knowledge that would prepare me for a leadership role in the healthcare sector. However, I have realized that I need more evidence on the administrative challenges that these healthcare organizations encounter on a daily basis, as most information is drawn from hospitals and clinics in western settings.

A brief internship stint in hospital administration at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Huntington, West Virginia, United States inspired me to pursue a bachelor of business administration in healthcare management at Marshall University. Moreover, I came face-to-face with how new healthcare delivery systems are integrated into healthcare institutions, how work and budgets are restructured to accommodate an increasing number of patients and diversity of illnesses, and how technological innovations are adopted in hospitals and clinics. I was able to compare the administrative practices in the hospital at West Virginia with that of my local hospitals in Saudi Arabia and felt the need for a better understanding of the healthcare environment in Saudi Arabia, which could best be obtained through research. Besides, these educational experiences exposed me to the kind of healthcare leadership and hospital administration is would desire for the healthcare sector in my home country.

My desire to undertake research on healthcare services delivery in dynamic settings was further inspired by my interactions with other nurses and other healthcare professional during the series of training and short courses I undertook and conferences I attended while undertaking my graduate studies in healthcare administration at Marshal University. I felt the need to pursue higher academic credentials above my nursing qualifications to health create a conducive working environment for the nurses that would join the healthcare career after me. While in West Virginia, I was drawn to the postgraduate program in Health Services and Outcomes Research that was being offered at West Virginia University. This program would enable me to undertake research in health services to understand better the issues that are related to access, cost, financing, and delivery of healthcare services, while improving patient safety and outcomes through medical error reduction. Similarly, research in outcomes would help me evaluate the effectiveness of health interventions and their relation to hospital administration and leadership, and healthcare policy. In this regard, I feel prepared to undertake a rigorous research-based program because I have collected and interacted with data at the patient’ level and used it to evaluate the effectiveness of clinical interventions.

A sound research-based credential will prepare me to participate in healthcare policy formulation and strategy formulation for the improvement of healthcare delivery systems cost-effectively, without compromising the quality of care. My ultimate professional and personal satisfaction is to become an agent of change in my community by contributing to the advancement of the quality of administration of healthcare organizations and delivery of high-quality healthcare services through well-designed and implemented healthcare systems.