The modern healthcare sector faces significant challenges, ranging from cost to compliance, and, of course, patient outcomes. Leaders are determined to address these concerns while promoting respectful and empathetic care, and while keeping the cost of that care manageable.
Despite these issues, healthcare management remains deeply appealing to highly driven and passionate professionals. Aspiring leaders hope to drive change through the healthcare sector while also pursuing high-level positions that allow them to easily earn over six figures.
One of the best ways to prepare for success in this demanding yet rewarding field? Pursuing a Master of Business Administration, but not just any MBA. The key lies in finding a focused program that still promotes business fundamentals. In other words, pursuing a healthcare management master’s degree.
While broad-based management training is certainly relevant to healthcare management, applied programs are increasingly prioritized, encouraging students to explore foundational concepts as they relate to the healthcare industry.
Interested in pursuing your MBA in Healthcare Management? Keep reading to learn what this program involves and why it plays a crucial role in driving the future of healthcare management.
What Is a Healthcare Management MBA?
The Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a highly sought-after graduate-level degree. Integrating critical concepts from finance, accounting, economics, and even marketing, this versatile, career-focused degree can be tailored to reflect core goals and strategies in various sectors or niches, including healthcare.
The Healthcare MBA shares much in common with the ‘general’ MBA, but with a greater focus on applying key concepts within the dynamic healthcare sector. To that end, the degree combines a foundational, business core curriculum with targeted healthcare management courses, but always with a focus on practical application.
MBA in Healthcare Management Program Structure
Dividing required courses between a foundational business core, and a healthcare-oriented major, the master’s in healthcare management promotes both breadth and depth of learning.
Fundamental practices such as HR management and data analysis are widely applicable in all areas of the business world, but they are more meaningful to aspiring healthcare managers when combined with career-specific coursework.
In all courses (healthcare-specific and otherwise) immersive experiences and case studies are emphasized, so students can bridge the gap between theory and application. Below, we will provide a deeper dive into this unique curriculum.
Healthcare Management Curriculum
Spanning 15 credit hours and promoting field-based learning, the healthcare management major exposes students to the field’s most knowledgeable professionals while promoting targeted skill development. Essential courses include:
- Healthcare Programs and Policies. Exploring the complex web of healthcare rules and regulations, this course reveals how aspiring healthcare managers can help shape future policies.
- Healthcare Administration. Offering an in-depth overview of healthcare delivery and the many forces that shape it, this comprehensive course touches on everything from strategic planning to human resources and even health informatics.
- Quality Management in Healthcare Organizations. Covering the nuances of quality assurance within the healthcare sector, this course helps students assess and analyze numerous parameters related to patient outcomes and satisfaction while also addressing concerns surrounding operational efficiency.
- Healthcare Law and Ethics. Providing valuable ethical frameworks for future healthcare managers, this crucial course helps future leaders understand and appreciate both patients’ and employees’ rights, and how these can be safeguarded in the dynamic healthcare environment.
- Healthcare Finance. Forecasting, budgeting, and strategic planning are all priorities in this applied finance course, which builds on fundamental finance concepts and reveals how these play out in the healthcare sector.
Business Core Curriculum
While healthcare-centric courses are important, it is also imperative that future healthcare managers develop a deep-seating understanding of fundamental business concepts. These take center stage in the MBA’s business core, which includes these valuable courses:
- Human Resource Management. Examining the full scope of HR, this essential course reveals how management professionals can drive positive organizational outcomes through hiring strategies, employee development, and even morale monitoring.
- Human Behavior Management of Organizations. The most impactful healthcare managers understand how individuals and teams function within organizational environments and especially in the healthcare industry. This course explores these complex dynamics, revealing how they are further impacted by advanced technologies and other global trends.
- Accounting for the Contemporary Manager. Detailing product costing, financial statements, and other accounting fundamentals, this course enhances student understanding through detailed and dynamic case analyses.
- The Economic Environment. There is no denying the heavy influence that overarching economic principles and events have on the modern healthcare field. This course thoroughly explores relevant economic applications to help students understand the current complexities of our economic environment.
- The Marketing Environment. Marketing initiatives shape patient perceptions and can contribute to the overall financial health of healthcare organizations. Hence, the importance of this foundational course, which reveals how marketing plans are developed and implemented.
- Research and Statistics for Managers. The healthcare sector is increasingly data-driven, so the importance of this research and statistics course cannot be overstated. Encouraging critical evaluation, this application-oriented class should prepare students for complex decision-making efforts.
- Strategy in a Global Environment. This capstone experience helps students synthesize a wide range of management concepts and reflect on their enhanced understanding while completing business simulations.
Key Skills Developed in a Healthcare Management MBA Program
Success in healthcare management requires a well-rounded skill set that includes technical expertise, leadership abilities, and a strong grasp of current healthcare regulations and industry trends.
Future healthcare managers need to develop not only cutting-edge skills, but also abilities that will remain relevant far into the future. This blend should make tomorrow’s leaders uniquely adaptable, so they can rise to the occasion as they encounter challenges that may be otherwise difficult to predict. Essentials include:
Analytical and Critical Thinking Skills
As healthcare management, and healthcare in general, shifts toward data-driven strategies, analytical thinkers will be in high demand. Many MBA courses help students develop critical thinking skills by encouraging them to get deeply involved in case studies, business simulations, and other immersive activities. Analytical skills are further prioritized within research and statistics courses.
Leadership and Team Management
Aspiring healthcare managers need to understand which leadership strategies are most effective in various situations, and how to adapt their own unique approach to reflect the evolving needs of staff members, patients, or other stakeholders. Healthcare MBA students explore these essentials while studying organizational behavior, HR management, and healthcare administration.
Communication and Interpersonal Skills
There is a strong need for empathy and emotional intelligence in all corners of the healthcare industry. While this is well-understood in the context of clinical care, it is just as important in healthcare management.
The good news? Communication is a clear priority within MBA programs, with every discussion and paper helping students learn how to adjust their messaging to convey complex concepts as effectively as possible.
Ethical Decision-Making and Integrity
Ethical concerns abound within the healthcare industry, with equity, informed consent, and conflicts of interest all attracting a great deal of attention among patients and professionals alike. Healthcare managers must navigate these concerns with sensitivity and while also abiding by complex regulations. Courses on ethics encourage future healthcare managers to lead with integrity.
The Value of a Healthcare Management MBA
A healthcare management master’s degree can unlock powerful and potentially lucrative career opportunities, helping graduates find a strong footing in a quickly growing and opportunity-filled corner of the management profession. Different students find different aspects of the master’s in healthcare management compelling, but some feel that these qualities are especially appealing:
Enhanced Career Prospects
Healthcare management is experiencing significant growth, with a robust job outlook projected over the next decade. This expansion is fueled by an increasing need for professionals who can effectively organize and oversee medical information and healthcare staff. The widespread adoption of electronic health records has further amplified the demand for managers skilled in organizing, overseeing, and integrating these records across various sectors of the healthcare industry.
Despite the promising job market, aspiring healthcare management professionals should not forgo pursuing advanced degrees. Obtaining the right credentials can accelerate your progression up the healthcare career ladder. Many employers still expect candidates to possess graduate-level qualifications, even amidst strong industry demand.
Personal and Professional Growth
Personal goals matter, and while these often align with professional ambitions, there is no denying the confidence that comes with skill mastery. By tackling and even embracing difficult coursework, MBA students develop a powerful sense of accomplishment, realizing that they have what it takes to navigate the field’s most pressing concerns.
Professionally speaking, this degree is valuable because it places graduate students in close contact with both current healthcare leaders and tomorrow’s most influential individuals. Passion-driven students love discussing critical concepts with their peers and appreciate the powerful connections they make along the way.
Impact on Healthcare Organizations and Society
A number of aspiring leaders are determined to spark positive change in the healthcare sector, and often, their central goals as MBA students do not strictly center around personal ambitions. Rather, they want to gain the skills and understanding needed to actually make a difference.
MBA graduates can have a profound impact, paving the path toward critical improvements within healthcare facilities and at the policy level. Society needs forward-thinking healthcare managers who can think critically, act ethically, and take decisive action to drive innovation.
Start Your Healthcare Management MBA at Baker
As you prepare for a successful career in healthcare management, look to Baker College for guidance. Accredited by the International Accreditation Council for Business Education (IACBE), our healthcare management master’s program can help you make a difference in a complex and highly crucial sector.Ready to take the next step? Reach out today to learn more about this amazing opportunity, or to gain even more insight into the many career pathways your healthcare management master’s degree could unlock.