MPH Functional Certificate: Healthcare Management (CAHME-accredited*)
The challenges in organizing healthcare delivery systems to improve patient care quality and achieve population-level access and equity while controlling costs have never been greater. SPH’s practice-based program in healthcare management provides graduates crucial analytical and leadership competencies to tackle these challenges. Graduates can analyze the organization, financing and delivery of healthcare; analyze effects of healthcare policy; apply project management and quality improvement tools; and lead individuals and teams to improve care delivery.
Upon completion of the MPH with a certificate in Healthcare Management, graduates excel in five key areas:
Health Care System Analysis
- Demonstrate an understanding of the forces and factors that have shaped and are driving healthcare systems.
- Analyze the structures, processes, and outcomes observed in the organization, function, delivery, and financing of health services in the US.
- Compare the organization, delivery, and financing of the US healthcare system to systems in other nations in order to identify and explore alternative approaches.
- Apply economic and financial analysis to understand causes of high costs associated with the delivery of healthcare services in the US.
- Analyze strategic alternatives using policy, market, and organizational analyses to develop forward-looking recommendations.
Health Policy Analysis
- Understand how health policy is developed, and understand how to influence the policy-making process.
- Assess how healthcare is allocated and provided; analyze how these factors influence changes in health policy.
- Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of current policies in the US; understand the factors influencing successful policy implementation.
Improvement and Implementation
- Translate visions and strategies into specific goals and implementation plans with deliverables, timelines, and budgets.
- Apply planning/management tools and techniques to achieve successful project completion.
- Apply operations and financial data to pursue value-based approaches to care.
- Critically appraise and synthesize healthcare quality data to use in pursuit of quality improvement.
- Identify roles and applications of health information systems in managing healthcare delivery, financing, and quality assessment.
Leadership
- Collaborate in teams to set clear goals and expectations, assess the contributions of others, and provide clear developmental feedback.
- Improve one’s own performance based on feedback from others.
- Communicate mission, vision, goals, and recommended courses of action.
- Apply problem-solving and negotiation principles to understand conflicts in interpersonal, organizational, and political contexts, and develop viable solutions.
- Analyze organizational dynamics and relationships in order to improve organizational processes.
- Apply change management principles at the individual and organizational levels to advance the organization’s mission and goals.
Professionalism
- Persuasively and clearly communicate in formal and informal situations, using technology to support the presentation of ideas and data.
- Prepare well-written communications in a clear, logical, effective, and grammatical manner in a variety of formats (emails, policy briefs, memos, research papers).
- Develop strategies for exploring career options and accurately seeing own strengths and development needs; establish and sustain professional networks.
- Apply ethical guidelines for sound professional practice.
Course Requirements
- PM 714 Professional Development in Healthcare Management Seminar (0 cr)
- PM 734 Principles and Practices in Non-Profit Healthcare Accounting (4 cr)
- PM 735 Healthcare Finance (4 cr)
- PM 736 Human Resource Management in Public Health (4 cr) or PM 776 Managerial Skills for Problem Solving (4 cr)
- PM 755 Healthcare Delivery Systems: Issues and Innovations (4 cr)
- PM 804 Digital Disruption in Health (2 cr)
- PM 827 Strategic Management of Healthcare Organizations (4 cr)
- PM 832 Operations Management in Healthcare (4 cr) or PM 835 Lean Management in Healthcare (4 cr)
Integrative Learning Experience
The ILE for the Healthcare Management certificate is designed to be completed during a student’s last semester in the program, and is focused on evidence-based management, requiring that students apply current research findings in the field of healthcare management to an applied healthcare delivery problem or question.
*Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education
