The term entrepreneurship has traditionally been associated with leaders of small innovative businesses seeking to expand their product nationally and perhaps internationally. However, the concept of entrepreneurship is more diverse than its association with business. Entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly significant in sectors such as politics, healthcare, health care services and more recently education. The importance of ensuring the principles of entrepreneurship are at the forefront of planning for tertirary education providers and tertiary education programs is evolving with signifcant intensity.
In particular, present day education of health professionals must include content in contemporary curriculua that promotes and promotes the signficance of entrepreneurship. The inclusion of entrepreneurship into the education of future health professionals is considered essential to ensure graduates are better prepared to meet the changes and challenges associated with sustainable health services. Entrepreneurs are considered to be skilled and ambitious in addition to being innovative, fostering teams through leadership and management. As such, entrepreneurs are needed in the area of healthcare to ensure services are innovative and have strong leadership and managment. Therefore, the future of healthcare, worldwide, is dependent on new health care graduates being entrepreneurial.
Throughout time, ‘health care’ and health care services have been illness focused and driven by a medical model that is treatment orientated. Today, health professionals are required to have a broader skill-set to meet current trends in health care and assist more informed consumers. Role expansion of health professionals necessitates that education providers deliver programs that include entrepreneurship to meet current demands within the health care sector.
This paper highlights the ability and relevance of entreprenship being incorporated into tertiary programs to produce a new style of health professional to meet the needs of contemporary social and health care services. The University of Southern Queensland has developed a program to produce an entrepreneural healthcare provider who has a range of skills to ensure the health and social wellbeing of individuals is central while ensuring the sustainability of quality healthcare.