The Higher Education Review

While MBBS and Nursing education are gaining popularity in India, one allied stream that is often overlooked is the hospital administration strata. One educational institution that has been trying to bring a change to this situation is Apollo Institute of Hospital Administration (AIHA). The institute which was established in 1994, offers Master’s Degree in Hospital Management, a full time, regular two year- four semester post-graduate program. Affiliated to Osmania University, approved by the AICTE and sponsored by Apollo Hospitals Educational & Research Foundation, the institute has completed 25 eventful years of teaching and research and also has trained and placed over 1000 students who are in progressively responsible leadership positions in hospitals and health care institutions in India and abroad.

Being Unique to its Core
AIHA was incepted with a strategic intention of ‘Revolutionizing the healthcare management perspectives’ and the Mission of the institute is ‘Dedicated to training passionate, dynamic cadre of World-class professionals for management of hospitals and healthcare organizations.’ “To be in par with the upcoming trends and demands of the broad healthcare industry, the curriculum of AIHA is designed to accommodate 28 subjects with an equal blend of theory and practice spread over the 4 semesters covering all the industry areas. First semester introduces basic management subjects like hospital management principles, research methodology & statistics, hospital environment & economic policy and so on. Second semester deals with functional subjects like human resources, finance, planning & operations, marketing and materials management in hospitals.

In third semester, students are exposed to a broad healthcare application subjects like hospital information systems, health insurance & medical tourism, patient care management and so on. And the final semester concludes with top management subjects like strategic management, entrepreneurship, management control systems, and healthcare laws”, avers Dr. Sangitha Reddy, Joint Managing Director of Apollo Hospitals Group .

The faculty members at AIHA have a good mix of teaching and industry experience with an average work experience of 10 years. Case study, role plays, and group discussions are some of the regular teaching methodologies followed by the dynamic faculty at the institute to explain the curriculum courses to the students. They use the facilities like power-point, projector and whiteboard to engage the students in the class room discussions. Also, the faculty members play the role of mentors and research guides for their assigned group of hospital management graduates at AIHA. Also, to inculcate the hardworking and visionary aspects among their students, the faculty as a team frequently counsels them and helps to visualize their future and align with the healthcare industry. Inorder to strengthen their academics, AIHA faculty does rigorous research on the upcoming healthcare areas, ensure publications of the same in reputed journals, attends Faculty Development Programmes (FDPs), participates in periodic review meetings internally, organize various institute events including cultural, seminars, and conferences thus increasing the standards and quality of AIHA.

“To be in par with the upcoming trends and demands of the broad healthcare industry, the curriculum of AIHA is designed to accommodate 28 subjects with an equal blend of theory and practice spread over the 4 semesters covering all the industry areas”

Creating the Perfect Learning Environment
When asked about the unique benefits, AIHA offers to their students, Dr. Sangitha says, “Branding, attractive placements, faculty experience, University affiliations, standard education system and accessibility to various parts of the city are the unique features of our institute to attract the right pool of students to our course. The Institute’s library is well equipped with a wide-range of books on hospital and health care management & Library Automation Network with NGL software & OPAC. Our college library is a registered member of NDLI and Swayam. At present, there are more than 3028 titles with more than 7543

volumes of textbooks at the library and selected books are being added periodically to keep it up to date. Our Computer Center is equipped with state-of-the-art systems and is connected through a LAN to facilitate sharing of resources. These facilities are offered with a view to provide hands-on training on relevant packages like, Hospital Information Systems (HIS) and applications in business and hospital management. We are also planning to restart our institute journal in the very near future which is already existing with the name Reflections. Along with it, we are going to launch AIHA’s newsletter and so on”.



Some of the key recruiters that absorbed the students from the institute include Deloitte US-India, UHG, Apollo Clinics, ICICI Lombard, Reliance General Insurance, PrimeEra Medical Technologies, Yashoda Hospitals, KIMS, Continental Hospitals, Accenture, Vijaya Diagnostic Centre, Dr.Reddys Laboratories and so on. Some of the successful alumni that have walked out of AIHA include Mrs. Aparna Reddy, COO, Apollo Institute of Medical Sciences & Research; Dr.Harish Pillai, CEO, Aster DM Healthcare; and Mr.Gaurav Loria, Chief Quality Officer, Apollo Group of Hospitals.

Keeping the upcoming demand from the students and the competition, in future AIHAaims to expand the present course by increasing the intake capacity of the students by 50 percent and also, they wish to add new feathers to the institute by starting online courses in healthcare management, Masters in Public Health & Health informatics, Hospital & Healthcare Management for Women, and also Executive Hospital & Healthcare Management for experienced candidates. Going froward, AIHA wants to assure the community at all levels that they are going to provide healthcare leaders who can create a positive difference in the healthcare industry.