%0 Journal Article
%T Entrepreneurship Education in Health Care Education
%A L. Salminen
%A E. Lindberg
%A M.-L. Gustafsson
%A J. Heinonen
%A H. Leino-Kilpi
%J Education Research International
%D 2014
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2014/312810
%X This study describes the content of entrepreneurship education in health care education and the kinds of teaching methods that are used when teaching about entrepreneurship. Health care entrepreneurship has increased in many countries in recent decades and there is evidence that entrepreneurs have also a role in public health care. Therefore the health care professionals need to be educated to have the entrepreneurial skills. Education in the field of health care is still based on traditional forms of teaching and does not give enough attention to the issue of becoming an entrepreneur. The data was collected from teachers via e-mail from six Finnish polytechnics. The data were analysed statistically and the open-ended questions were analysed via content analysis. Approximately 23% of the teachers had taught about entrepreneurship. The most popular teaching methods were company visits and cases, lecturing, and project work. The courses dealt with establishing a company, entrepreneurship in general, and marketing. Nearly all of the teachers had cooperated with the entrepreneurs or with the companies in question. Approximately 33% of the teachers took entrepreneurship into consideration often in other courses related to entrepreneurship. 1. Introduction Entrepreneurship in the health care sector is not a new phenomenon. Already before World War II, many nurses worked as entrepreneurs. After the war, nurses began to work in public services in many countries due to social and economic changes. Approximately 1% of all nurses work as entrepreneurs [1]. A nurse is defined as an entrepreneur if he or she offers different nursing services in private-sector markets: care, education, research, and administrative work [1¨C3]. Social, political, and economic factors such as an economic crisis, the dissatisfaction of nurses with their work, and changes in the health needs of the population and consumers have caused more nurses to become entrepreneurs during the last decades [1, 2, 4]. The development, scope of practise, and regulation of nurse entrepreneurs will also depend on economic infrastructure and policies implemented at the national, regional, and local levels [1, 5]. The notion of entrepreneurship is not relevant for clinical nurses only; it is relevant for any nurses who are in managerial positions and need to understand changes in the organizational process. During times of economic uncertainty, knowledge about entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial skills can be exploited when health care staff needs to figure out how to do more with fewer resources [4]. Some
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/edri/2014/312810/