What Does a Clinical Manager Do?

A career as a clinical manager revolves around supervising the staff and overseeing the daily operations of a healthcare facility. Essentially, these individuals are responsible for ensuring quality patient care and maintaining a smooth work flow. Being successful in this field typically requires a person with extensive medical knowledge, leadership skills and an empathetic nature. In general, a person must have at least a bachelor's degree in health management or a similar area to be considered for this job. Some typical responsibilities of a clinical manager include hiring and training personnel, scheduling staff members, supervising staff members, monitoring inventory and participating in meetings.

In most healthcare facilities, a clinical manager is in charge of hiring and training personnel. This involves conducting interviews to find suitable matches and hiring employees with the right skill set. Once new employees have been brought on, a clinical manager will provide those employees with a training program for getting acclimated to a facility. In some cases, he may handle the training program himself. Other times, he may incorporate a designated trainer for the process.

Another part of this job involves scheduling staff members for different shifts. It's up to a clinical manager to keep his facility adequately staffed at all times to ensure quality care for patients. Consequently, he must create a schedule with enough employees present at all times to handle patient needs.

Perhaps the most important duty of a clinical manager is supervising staff members. To be effective at his job, the manager must keep staff members on task and make sure everyone is following company policy. When an employee has a problem or makes a mistake, the clinical manager is the one who must resolve the situation. Besides this, he is responsible for observing and evaluating each employee's performance. In many facilities, he will also transfer information from a medical director to his staff.

Along with this, it's up to him to monitor inventory and order equipment and supplies when necessary. For smaller facilities, this may be a relatively simple task. Larger facilities, on the other hand, typically have considerable amounts of equipment and supplies which can be difficult to maintain. A clinical manager is usually the one who meets with vendors when new equipment and supplies are received to verify an order.

Additionally, this position often requires a person to participate in meetings. Generally speaking, a medical director of a facility will lead a meeting and a clinical manager will discuss issues within his department. These meetings are intended to resolve problems and create continuity among different departments.