Part-Time Hybrid MHA

Part-Time Hybrid Course List

The 45.5-credit curriculum provides students with the management and policy skills needed to be effective health care leaders. The core curriculum is comprised of the three components below. In addition to the required classes, students take 7.5 credits in electives to dive deeper into areas of interest.

Overview of The Political, Legal And Economic Framework

Overview of The Public Health System

Health Care Management

Overview of The Political, Legal And Economic Framework

Issues and Approaches in Health Policy & Management

How is the health care system organized? Who pays the bill? Why have efforts to enact national health insurance failed? What role does government now play in the US health care system, and how do different levels of government share these tasks?  This course will tackle some of the complexity of health care head on, considering how cultural, legal and structural factors shape the delivery of care. The goal will be to address foundational questions about how policy-makers imagine health care, the professionals who work within the field, and the patients. 

Health Economics

Health economics provides theories and tools for understanding, predicting, and changing human behavior. In this course, students will learn the concepts in health economics most relevant and important to public health professionals and how these economic concepts can be applied to improving health care and the public health systems. Students will identify the basic concepts of health economics for the purposes of solving problems using these concepts, and apply these concepts in new contexts within public health.

Governance, Health Law & Ethics

This course explores public health through the lens of law, governance and ethics. The public health "agenda" must, after all, operate within the rule of law.  We evaluate public health issues from an American legal perspective to determine the constitutional soundness of health promotion. To ensure public health laws are evidence-based, ethical and empirically-sound we consider multi-disciplinary factors and their interaction with politics, federalism, evidence and economics. Readings consider all three branches of government: judicial decisions, legislative and regulatory explorations in addition to writings by public health law practitioners, ethicists, historians, sociologists, economists and philosophers.  Core topics include constitutional law and major public health cases, regulatory tools, economic analysis in law, health promotion campaigns, compulsory vaccination, torts and First Amendment law. 

Overview of The Public Health System

Analytics & Managerial Decision-Making I

Managers are continually confronted with the need to make significant decisions concerning the clinical, organizational and financial performance of a health organization. Data analysis is one tool that supports such decision-making. This course develops analytical skills to prepare health care managers to make informed, data-driven decisions. Topics will include introductory data and statistical exploration from basic descriptive statistics to population and market estimation, sampling design and analysis, prediction, simulation, and causal inference. The focus will be on conceptual understanding and presentation of data. Students will also have the option to learn how to implement analytical techniques in the “R” programming language.

Analytics & Managerial Decision-Making II

This is a course about analytical thinking and skills for managers. Our aim is to further develop statistical skills, while emphasizing practical applications, translation to policy, and communicating results. We will spend the first half of the course building technical skills on fundamental and some advanced analytical methods, where each session will be a combination of teaching and practice. Next, we will apply all skills into interactive challenges (including presentation of results), where we will focus on written and visual communication of insights. We will close the class by covering the principles of survey design and analysis, plus utilizing insights for decision-making. We will develop these skills not only through directed challenges, but also through more practical examples, where only general guidance is provided and participants will utilize their own creativity and experience.

Public Health Concepts 

This course exposes students to many of the core concepts and principles of public health required for them to work as administrators in healthcare settings. As managers and administrators, an understanding of these concepts is critically important if they are going to be in positions where they can influence the creation of innovative programs, deliver services, develop policies and ultimately impact the health of local, national and global communities. Students will be asked to learn concepts from a variety of disciplines and how to translate that information into practice. The translation process will occur as they apply their learnings to cases that will allow them to discuss the applicability of those concepts in an ever changing public health world and healthcare system.

Health Care Management

Healthcare Accounting & Budgeting

Financial statements enable managers to evaluate the performance of an organization and assess its financial position.  Budgets, based on forecasts, take the form of projected statements and serve as an important managerial tool for planning and control purposes. This course provides an introduction to the accounting, budgeting and financial reporting techniques commonly used in the health care and not-for-profit environment.  Emphasis is placed on enabling students to become comfortable with financial analysis, budgets and commonly-used financial terminology so that they can effectively address financial matters they will encounter in leadership roles in health care and not-for-profit organizations.

Healthcare Finance

This course teaches the principles necessary for effective financial management in the healthcare industry and discusses the analyses used by managers to make strategic and operating decisions. It is intended to make administrators comfortable with managing the finances of the department or other entity for which they have responsibility. This course also examines how healthcare services are financed under the U.S. system and discusses ongoing challenges to efficient financing.

Strategic Issues in Healthcare Quality

This course provides an overview of healthcare quality in the US, focusing on the strategic issues facing health care executives, providers, payors and policy makers.  Students will be equipped with the vocabulary, concepts and tools to understand the complex and dynamic aspects of health care quality in today's environment, including debating the pay-for-quality movement, the cost/quality conundrum, the barriers to change and the shifts in power. Students are encouraged to take the perspective of the executive and policy-maker in class discussions.  In addition, the course surveys current ideas and methodologies in establishing and measuring quality, risk management and outcomes.

Health Information Management

This course will teach the fundamentals of understanding how health information technology and the increasing role of Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Cloud Computing will dramatically change healthcare research, development, and operations globally. The readings, discussions, and course work will result in healthcare leaders adept in properly responding to the challenges in information technology management across a variety of healthcare organizations and knowledgeable about digital health tools such as Remote Monitoring and Predictive Analytics and their potential applications. 

Human Resources Management

Managing professionals is crucial to healthcare organizations' success (or failure) because the provision of services primarily relies on human decision-making and interaction. Healthcare professionals determine the level of quality and the costs associated with healthcare services directly or indirectly. This course aims to introduce students to the functions and issues related to managing human resources in healthcare organizations through in-class discussions and exercises demonstrating the challenges that graduates may face as healthcare executives in the future. Significant attention is given to 1) workforce issues; 2) understanding legal issues related to the employment setting; 3) understanding the emerging use of digital technology and artificial intelligence in human resource management; 4) selection and retention of employees; 5) establishing performance standards and evaluating performance and compensation; 6) understanding the use and effects of monetary and non-monetary incentives in human resources management in the United States and globally; and 7) establishing and retaining a diverse and inclusive workforce.

Managerial and Organizational Behavior

This course is designed to give students a strong foundation in the managerial and organizational behavior issues associated with leading health systems. The course aims to build management, teamwork, and interpersonal skills that may be put into practice. Concepts from the discipline of managerial and organizational behavior (MOB) will be used as a lens to interpret and understand current health system issues. Students should complete the course with an appreciation of their context's unique organizational and interpersonal aspects, and with the capacity to understand their unique value to solving some of our most pressing health challenges. The course is designed to allow students to reflect on and apply lessons drawn from personal leadership experience in health systems.

Strategic Management

The Strategic Management course has two primary objectives: (1) to introduce and apply analytic frameworks used in formulating and implementing strategies at the general manager level, and (2) to integrate managerial skills acquired in other courses and through personal job experiences. Students will be able to analyze complex industry and organizational situations from an executive or general management point of view, utilizing a comprehensive strategic framework. They will be able to develop and/or identify potential alternative strategies for pursuing organizational mission and vision. Students will learn to assess the implications of strategic options, including potential for achieving competitive advantage and for effective implementation and prepare plans for executing strategies successfully within realistic economic, market, and temporal parameters. Students will be also be able to make, support analytically, and communicate clear strategic decisions from an executive leadership perspective.

Healthcare Marketing

This course will engage students in learning marketing strategy to respond to the health needs of others both strategically and tactically. The skills gained will be applicable to a spectrum of healthcare professionals, ranging from doctors, hospital administration, government officials and service providers to those at pharmaceutical and insurance companies. Key learnings include: understanding the consumer and building loyalty, market research; market segmentation; the role branding plays in marketing; developing and orchestrating integrated marketing tactics; crisis communications; and metrics. Actual cases will be utilized as part of the learning experience including a major project where students will use traditional and social marketing techniques to transform a number of current healthcare marketing campaigns.

Hospital Management 

The course begins with a brief overview of key concepts in leadership and management theory. The course then examines in detail areas for which hospital executives will be responsible such as optimizing hospital operations and undertaking continuous and robust process improvement through LEAN; improving the revenue cycle of hospitals and negotiating managed care contracts; driving improvements in hospital quality; and pursuing collaboration strategies.  Finally, the course will take an in-depth look at the current health care environment in which hospitals are simultaneously experiencing significant margin pressure while having to make fundamental shifts in strategy to adjust to the reform-propelled transition from volume to value based reimbursement from governmental and commercial payers.    

Professional Strategic Communications

This class is part of the Professional Development Program (PDP), a comprehensive, co-curricular effort aimed at developing personal and professional skills to prepare students to be successful in the workforce  and their careers. It will focus on self-discovery and personal branding, developing skills needed to shape students' professional self and develop the skills to find and thrive in a job. This course will help students achieve these goals by providing the tools to: (1) develop a professional persona (2) sharpen professional communication (3) collaborate effectively as a team member and (4) clarify career objectives.

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