Healthcare Management.
As part of Boston University’s on-campus Master of Public Health (MPH) degree, you will choose at least one Functional Certificate as your area of concentration, building upon your interests, strengths and career goals.
Healthcare Management Functional Certificate
Program Ranking
Best Healthcare Management Program
From 2026 U.S. News & World Report
Healthcare management aims to improve access, quality, equity, and value in health care through optimizing the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare systems. BUSPH’s CAHME-accredited practice-based certificate 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.
In this certificate program, you will develop conceptual, analytical, and practical knowledge that will facilitate your advancement in the healthcare management field.
Certificate Mission, Vision, Values
Mission
The mission of the Healthcare Management Certificate program is to advance both research and education that improves access, quality, equity, and value in healthcare, and to meet the educational and professional development needs of recent graduates and early to mid-career health system professionals who seek to become leaders in evidence-based healthcare management and policy and transform the health of populations.
Vision
- To provide an education that cultivates students’ content-specific skills as well as their ability to develop their leadership, professionalism, and career advancement skills
- To become a nationally-competitive program option for students who seek to transform healthcare delivery
- To create leaders who prioritize solving issues of disparities and access that plague the current US healthcare system
- To deliver a flexible program for both full-time and part-time students, at multiple career stages
Values
- Excellent teaching, student advising, and career preparation
- Effective implementation of evidence derived from rigorous research into practice
- Leverage diverse stakeholder perspectives to reduce systematic inequities in healthcare delivery
- Establish the foundation for making ethical decisions using sound business and financial practices
- Interdisciplinary team work and analysis, both in research and in practice
- Applied exercises among students, alumni, and prospective employers through the use of field-based projects
Our HLPM Advisory Board Members
What You Will Learn
Upon completion of the MPH with a certificate in Healthcare Management, you will excel in five key areas: health care system analysis, health policy analysis, improvement and implementation, leadership, and professionalism. This certificate is a 28-credit program.
Example Course Titles and Past Practicum Examples
Example Course Titles
- Health Care Delivery Systems: Issues and Innovations
- Strategic Management of Healthcare Organizations
- Operations Management in Health Care
View the BU Bulletin for Complete Course Requirements
Past Student Practica
- Program Evaluation Intern, Fenway Community Health Center
- Administrative & Elder Service Plan Intern, East Boston Neighborhood Health Center
- Health Systems Administrative Intern, Veterans’ Affairs Boston Healthcare System
- Population Health Intern, Atrius Health
- Assistant Program Administrator, BUMC Center for Implementation & Improvement Sciences
- Neurology Quality Improvement Intern, Boston Children’s Hospital
- Performance Management & Quality Improvement Intern, Massachusetts Department of Public Health
- Process Improvement Consultant Intern, Massachusetts General Hospital Orthopedics Department
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.
Competencies You Will Develop
Health Care System Analysis
- Demonstrate an understanding of the factors that shape the US healthcare system.
- Analyze the structures, processes, and outcomes observed in the organization, function, delivery, and financing of health services in the US.
- Apply economic and financial analysis to understand the causes of high costs of healthcare services in the US.
- Analyze strategic alternatives using policy, market, and organizational analyses to develop forward-looking recommendations.
- Compare the organization, delivery, and financing of the US healthcare system to systems in other nations.
Health Policy Analysis
- Analyze how competing stakeholder interests shape the development and implementation of health policies.
- Assess how health policies influence the allocation, financing, and delivery of healthcare.
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/financial concepts and data to pursue evidence-based approaches to care delivery.
- Critically appraise and synthesize healthcare quality data to use in pursuit of quality improvement.
- Identify roles and applications of health information and digital systems to optimize healthcare delivery.
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 strategies.
- Apply change management principles at the individual and organizational levels.
- Improve one’s understanding of how issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and racial and social justice influence the management of healthcare organizations and the health of patients.
Professionalism
- Persuasively and clearly communicate in formal and informal situations, using technology to support the presentation of ideas and data.
- Prepare communications in a clear, logical, and effective manner in a variety of formats (emails, policy briefs, memos, research papers).
- Develop strategies for exploring career options and accurately seeing one’s own strengths and development needs.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the importance of establishing and sustaining professional networks.
- Apply ethical guidelines for sound professional practice.
Program Teaching, Learning, and Assessment
Teaching and Learning Methods
- Individual and Group Presentations
- Case-based learning and discussion
- Field-based, live consulting-style projects performed with healthcare organizations and sponsors
- Group Projects
- Simulations
- Classroom lectures and guest speakers
- Reflections
- Readings
- Class Discussions and Discussion Posts
Assessment Methods
- Case Analysis Review and Feedback
- Team Assessments and Peer Assessments
- Presentations
- Class Participation
- Strategic and Operations/Lean Consulting Projects
- Exams
- Papers and Reports on current healthcare topics
Outcomes
Our graduates most commonly work for hospitals, health centers, health systems, quality-improvement organizations, health insurers, or consulting firms. Some directly support clinical care (e.g. as managers in clinical areas) while others are responsible for business functions that support care (e.g. as financial analysts).
Program retention rate
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%
Academic Year 2022-2023
0
%
Academic Year 2023-2024
Program graduates employed within 90 days of graduation
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%
Academic Year 2022-2023
0
%
Academic Year 2023-2024
View More Detailed Career Data
Certificate Director
“The CAHME-accredited Healthcare Management program at BUSPH offers a very hands-on model of education that provides students with skills they can use to launch successful careers in healthcare leadership positions. Our program is unique in its presentation of coursework and approaches to problem solving as it views the delivery of healthcare through the lens of communities and populations, rather than focusing only on the organizations that provide medical care. Our graduates are landing great jobs in some of the nation’s best health care organizations, consulting firms, and health insurance companies and are changing the lives of patients every day. It is no wonder that our program has recently been recognized by U.S. News and World Report as the highest ranked program in New England – a distinction we carry very proudly!”
Frequently Asked Questions
Are you a current student in need of advising?
Which course bulletin should I use if I matriculated several years prior?
Find any previous academic year’s bulletin in the BU
archive.
For more information about MPH degree requirements and admissions, request information to learn more.
View BUSPH Program Data on cahme.org
