Master of Science in Health Care Administration
Overview
Master of Science in Health Care Administration
The College of Nursing and Health Care Professions offers the Master of Science in Health Care Administration to aspiring healthcare managers or for professional health care providers to learn competencies related to the business of healthcare.
This online master's in health administration program emphasizes the conceptual, analytical and application skills required to manage contemporary healthcare organizations. As a healthcare administration student, you participate in a master's degree program that provides a comprehensive view of today's healthcare institutions, including models of operation from multiple perspectives. This online master’s degree program ends with a comprehensive capstone research project that requires you to select a challenge in healthcare and provide evidence-based solutions. This provides you an opportunity to develop a comprehensive research project, plan or proposal that addresses a problem, issue or concern.
Degree Outcomes
Master of Science in Health Care Administration Degree Outcomes
The master's in healthcare administration degree program exposes you to methods of analyzing, evaluating and implementing healthcare models to help innovate healthcare operations. The focus is on an organization's management and delivery of healthcare services, including balancing revenue and costs, effective communication, workforce management and effectively utilizing resources to provide quality patient care.
What You Will Learn
Master of Science in Health Care Administration Curriculum
Courses and topics may vary, depending upon state requirements, but in general you can expect this coursework to explore:
- Methodologies and strategies for program design, planning and implementation
- Practical financial analysis of operations, including managerial decision-making
- Workplace safety practices
- Integrative analysis of how innovations impact all components of healthcare
- Marketing topics, including working with internal and external teams
Career Outcomes
Master of Science in Health Care Administration Career Outcomes
As a graduate with a Master of Science in Health Care Administration, you are prepared to work in middle to upper management in for-profit or nonprofit organizations, including hospitals, clinics, ambulatory care or health services companies as a health care administrator. Employment opportunities in other types of healthcare organizations, such as insurance companies, governmental health agencies, nonprofit health organizations, medical device companies and medical equipment manufacturers, may also be available.
Course List
Program Core Courses
Course Description
This course is designed to prepare students for the graduate learning experience at Grand Canyon University. Students have opportunities to develop and strengthen the skills necessary to succeed as graduate students in the College of Business. Emphasis is placed on utilizing the tools for graduate success.
Course Description
This course allows students to develop a comprehensive understanding of contemporary health care models from financial, economic, quality, access, and disparity perspectives, and to relate the ethical, cultural, political, and financial factors that drive and support them. It is from this broad, integrative, and comparative perspective that students begin defining their role and perspective as administrators within the health care system. Students begin to investigate their options and define their potential to serve as leaders of systematic improvement, within their health care discipline, based on changes in these driving factors.
Course Description
This course focuses on the practical financial-analysis skills that have immediate application within the health care industry, as well as managerial decision-making processes based on cost, service, and economic variables that influence market performance and outcome.
Course Description
Topics covered in this course include principles and models for the recognition, analysis, and resolution of ethical dilemmas in health occupations; legal responsibility; workplace safety; and the health care facility’s obligation to provide protection from injury for patients, their families, and staff.
Course Description
This course focuses on the critical analysis of health care research and its application to the administration and delivery of health care services. Emphasis is placed on strategies to access current and relevant data, synthesize the information, and translate new knowledge into practice. Students are introduced to concepts of measurement, reliability, and validity, as well as ethical issues in the design and conduct of research through an evaluative process of health care initiatives and projects.
Course Description
This course focuses on the analysis of health care organizational structure and effectiveness. Topics include the distributive leadership model, decision making through collaboration and teamwork, and the integrative analysis of how change impacts other components of the system.
Course Description
This course focuses on essential managerial communication skills. Human resource topics include conflict management, negotiation, mediation, and coaching, as well as change management principles and the types of communication required for paradigm modification. Marketing topics include interdepartmental, cross discipline, external partner, and consumer communication and collaboration techniques.
Course Description
This course explores the nature of business leadership models and theories, examines these models through a broad variety of insights and viewpoints, and provides a description and analysis of these approaches to leadership, giving special attention to how the models can improve leadership in real-world organizations.
Course Description
This course focuses on the critical analyses of health care business operations and performance. Topics include analysis of financial performance, operational process analysis, and quality of service evaluation.
Course Description
This course is designed to provide students with the foundational knowledge, skills, resources, and guidance to prepare for professional health care standards related to their future discipline within the industry. Emphasis is placed on critical thinking, awareness and identification of resources, communication strategies, and goal setting. Students apply learned face-to-face and electronic networking techniques and tactics to ensure professional readiness along with gaining knowledge of professional standards. Students prepare a professional portfolio and resume, and learn practical interviewing techniques to prepare for entry into/advancement within their chosen discipline-specific health care careers.
Course Description
The focus of this course is to begin integrating all previous study and to identify the focus of students? final capstone project. Students evaluate and integrate the methodologies, considerations, and strategies for project or program design, planning, implementation, and evaluation that are relevant or specifically required by their specific health care discipline. Topics of investigation and consideration include (but are not limited to) financial and economic impact; resource allocation; competition; public and private educational requirements; availability of information technology; impact assessment of change; process improvement assessment; social, behavioral, and environmental impact; legal/ethical issues; and any other factors that impact the provision of care or subsequent outcomes within an organization and community. A collaborative group project approach is emphasized to enhance contribution and consideration from diverse experiences within the health care field. Prerequisite: HLT-610, HCA-610, or HIM-650.
Course Description
This course provides an opportunity for students to envision the best possible future for the American health care system, and to understand what changes are necessary to achieve it. By focusing on and developing a set of recommendations for improving American health care, students appreciate the difference between forcing a current system to work harder, and redesigning a system in order to achieve desired outcomes. Students learn how transactional leaders can become transformational leaders, and begin the formal process of preparing for their capstone research project. Students gain understanding of how clinical data, knowledge, and practice are driving the development of health care surveillance systems through informatics. Topics of investigation include the role of informatics in improved patient care and research, organization and national bio-surveillance, and clinical decision support. Consideration is given to legal and regulatory issues in private and public health practice and as they apply to public health security and preparedness in response to bioterrorism and disasters. Prerequisite: HCA-620.
Course Description
This capstone course provides an opportunity for students to complete the development of a comprehensive evidence-based project, plan, or proposal that addresses a problem, issue, or concern in their professional practice and can be implemented upon completion of the program. Projects address a problem amenable to research-based intervention; include a relevant and comprehensive literature review; propose a solution; and include a fully developed program, project, or business plan. The project also contains all the necessary information to implement the proposed solution, evaluate its outcome(s), and disseminate the findings. Prerequisite: HCA-675.
Faculty Bios
Program Locations
Online
* The Department of Education defines how an institution must calculate a program's On-Time Completion rate for federal disclosure purposes. The On-Time Completion rate is based on a program’s published required number of months to complete all degree requirements as provided in the institution’s catalog. Completion statistics are updated every January and are based on the cohort of students who graduated between 7/1 – 6/30 of the preceding year. The On-Time Completion rate is determined by the number of students in the cohort who completed the program within the published program length divided by the number of students in the cohort who graduated.
Online and Evening program disclosures* Please refer to the Academic Catalog for more information. Program subject to change.