Online MHA Courses

Introduction to organization, economics, culture, policy, and terminology of healthcare for non-health professionals. This also introduces the students to fundamental terminology, practices, and processes found in clinical and business operations.

Leaders in healthcare are faced with an ever-changing environment and therefore require strong managerial skills to transform the way their organizations respond to and lead change initiatives to shape tomorrow’s delivery system. This course addresses challenges faced in healthcare administration and potential solutions using practical approaches. Topics include strategy, culture, managerial, and strategic issues facing healthcare organizations.

Strategic management of healthcare organizations is crucial to future success and involves setting objectives, analyzing the competitive environment, analyzing the internal organization and external forces as well as the viability of future directions for the organizations. The course provides an organized, logical, and stepwise approach to the strategic management process and includes methods for assessing key features of organizational environments and competitive situations, approaches for developing strategic plans, and processes for ensuring their successful implantation.

Many of the decisions that healthcare leaders and managers make will have significant financial implications. This course is designed to increase analytical and decision-making skills using finance theories, principles, concepts, and techniques important to healthcare management. Includes department design, management of capital and operating budgets, budget planning process, strategic planning, and concepts necessary for the preparation and interpretation of financial statements required to make sound decisions that help deliver financial sustainability and profitability.

High-level overview of the use of technology in healthcare and how its use can be leveraged for organizational value. Overviews of the following topics will be included: administrative and clinical software applications, healthcare systems acquisition, evidence-based practice and clinical decision support, electronic health records, workflow design, and reengineering, healthcare information exchanges, telehealth, and consumer-focused technology. A high-level look at the healthcare industry and recent government mandates will also be explored.

This course examines the impact of legal factors affecting patient/client care and the operations and administration of healthcare facilities and systems. Topics include employment and contract law, patient rights (e.g. provider disclosure), healthcare accountability (e.g. medical error liability), and healthcare access (e.g. universal coverage). Includes an overview of ethical issues facing the healthcare industry and how health law and ethics can be applied to real-world problems.

Philosophy, structure and processes of Public Health Leadership in health care. Topics covered include: Leadership curriculum, Leadership qualities, levels and styles, Leadership culture and change management.

Utilization of data is critical to healthcare and acquiring intelligence through analytics is crucial to the day-to-day operations as well as future directions of these organizations. This course provides an overview of how healthcare data is generated, collected, and processed. It will include the use and analysis of data captured in the healthcare setting to directly inform decision-making. It has the power to positively impact patient care delivery, health outcomes, and business operations. Utilization and leveraging of healthcare data can drive improvements in our nation’s entire healthcare system through unbiased information and by facilitating problem-solving, solution sharing, and education through the collection and analyzing of healthcare data. Statistical and Research Methods pertinent to healthcare will be explored.

Population health focuses on the health and well-being of entire populations. Populations may be geographically defined, such as neighborhoods, states, or countries, or may be based on groups of individuals who share common characteristics such as age, gender, race-ethnicity, disease status, employee group membership, or socioeconomic status. With roots in epidemiology, public health, and demography, a key component of population health is the focus on the social determinants of health and “upstream” collaborative interventions to improve population health and variance, identify and reduce health disparities, and reduce healthcare costs. Given the shifting health care environment – from fee-for-service to value-based care – health administrators and managers who are able to apply epidemiological and demographic tools to measure, analyze, evaluate and improve population health will be well positioned for positions in health care as the field continues to evolve.

Professional career development seminar designed to prepare students to leverage career services and to begin long-term career planning for their future as health administration leaders including carefully developed coursework and personal coaching. Preparation for the capstone course will be accomplished with a selection project or the research topic will be discussed and finalized.

The capstone project involves practical work or research in a major area of health administration through student-led work. This course provides an opportunity to integrate knowledge gained in the classroom with a real-world problem. All projects require meetings with faculty members who serve as mentors. Projects may be completed on-site within a healthcare facility. Students who currently work in the healthcare industry may develop a capstone at their current place of employment with the approval of the employer and faculty mentor. Capstone will be taken as one of the last two courses in the student’s program of study, and after students have successfully completed the required core courses.

This course features an in-depth exploration of the contemporary human resources function and the fundamental human resources processes. The course provides an introduction to the key areas in human resources and the issues confronting organizations today. Particular emphasis is placed on recruitment and selection, training and development, performance evaluation systems, and compensation and benefits.

This course introduces the application of economic theory to the production of health and healthcare services. Students will investigate the demand for medical care and the roles of moral hazard and adverse selection in the health insurance market. They will analyze the differences in pricing and utilization across healthcare systems (HMO, PPO, POS), markets for physicians, hospital and pharmaceutical services, as well as the role of the government in the regulation and administration of healthcare. Students will also learn the decision-making tools used in the economic evaluation of healthcare interventions.

Effective conflict management is an essential skill for every leader. This course provides a broad understanding of what conflict is, the reasons why it occurs, and various methods and approaches on how to resolve it. Exploration of effective negotiation methods and ways to create value and resolve disputes. Designed to improve understanding of negotiation theory to be a more effective negotiator in a variety of situations.

Effective conflict management is an essential skill for every leader. This course provides a broad understanding of what conflict is, reasons why it occurs and various methods and approaches on how to resolve. Exploration of effective negotiation methods and ways to create value and resolve disputes. Designed to improve understanding of negotiation theory to be a more effective negotiator in a variety of situations.

With an ever-evolving landscape, innovation in healthcare is necessary for response to environmental disruptions. Organizational change theories and models, futurist literature, and major world trends in innovation that impact sustainable change efforts in education, health care, social enterprises, for-profit, and not-for-profit organizations, and related disciplines are examined. Additional topics include models and strategies in anticipating, creating, and managing change; collaboration; overcoming resistance to change; and creativity and innovations. Students will investigate applications and practices of organizational change relevant to their academic and professional interests.

Project management expertise is an essential skill for healthcare administrators to ensure projects are conducted with a proven framework and aligned with organizational strategy. This course introduces tools and techniques designed to facilitate critical project management knowledge areas, such as scope, schedule, cost, quality, resource, communication, risk, procurement, and stakeholder. Emphasis is placed on the skills and abilities of effective project managers. Students will learn the value of delivering a project on time, within schedule, and to the customer’s satisfaction.

Introduces students to the theoretical, practical, and historical foundations of non-profit fundraising. Topics include an overview of philanthropy and its importance in today’s world; ethics of philanthropy; fundraising sources and techniques; and finding your personal fundraising style.

Grant Management for public and non-profit agencies provides students with the knowledge required for proposal development, managing grant and contract awards, ethics, record keeping, and accountability.

Provides an understanding of the issues associated with developing plans and policies to prepare for disasters, both natural and manmade. Overview of nature of challenges posed by different kinds of disasters; discussion of regulatory requirements, sample plans, equipment requirements, collateral, and mutual aid support agreements, and methods for testing and updating plans.

Provides an understanding of how people, groups, organizations, communities, and governments manage a disaster in the immediate aftermath and long-term including social, physical, business, and infrastructure problems as well as intra and inter-organizational issues.

Provides an understanding of the various interactions that may be required between the emergency management official and a full spectrum of relevant stakeholders, including the emergency services and other responding or responsible agencies, the general and disaster impacted public, the private and NGO sectors, mutual aid partners and other neighboring jurisdictions, the media, and many others.