Health Care Administration

Folks-

Is a Master of Science degree in Healthcare Administration valuable?

Are there a decent number of jobs out there in Healthcare Administration? Or are those jobs given to former healthcare employees?


Thanks for any help you can give me.

 

Hi Matt,

In answer to the first question in regards to a Masters of Science in Healthcare Administration, this would be my first time ever hearing of a Masters in Science in Healthcare Administration. I've only heard of an MBA in Healthcare Administration - but this is not to say a Masters in Science for this field doesn't exist.

The second part of your question: I find that there are lots of jobs in Healthcare Administration from government jobs on down. I also notice that along with a degree (Bachelor's or Masters in either Business Administration or Healtcare/Health Services Administration) experience is truly a big factor within the health care realms or in relation to the specific position.

I've been doing lots of research on this myself due to the fact that: (1) I work in healthcare and I'm going on my tenth year, (2), I'll be returning to school to work on my bachelor's in Healthcare Administration. So in this, I wanted to know what I'd be up against and if any of it would be worth it. Trust, there are jobs out there - especially in healthcare but in your case, if you have never worked in healthcare settings and you have at least a business degree, it'd still be possible to land a job in healthcare settings with lots of room for advancement. I see it done constantly and it has even happened for me.

The CEO of the hospital I work for hadn't worked in healthcare a day in his life but he did have a MBA and because of this and his business related jobs in the past - landed him the job as the CEO of the hospital. He's been there 5 years now and is doing a good job to say the least.

 

Would this program at St. Joseph's College of Maine come close enough? It's a "Masters in Health Services Administration," which is not precisely the degree name you two are discussing, but would it, nevertheless, be close enough?

It's a 42-credit-hour program; fully RA; completely by distance learning except for a brief, mandatory, two-courses-in-two-weeks intensive summer residency.

[sarcasm]
Of course, it's so darned ugly in that part of Maine, right there on that stinky ol' lake, and all... I could certainly understand why no one would want to endure a two-week summer residency there.
[/sarcasm]

Cost is $275/credit-hour (the summer session courses have a different cost). No graduate-level entrance tests are required; just an accredited bachelor's with an adequate GPA.

St. Joseph's College of Maine (owned and operated by the Sisters of Mercy) has a pretty good reputation for customer service and treating all students like they're not cattle.

A person could do worse... or so it is my opinion.

 

Wow Des!

You have surely done your research. I discovered that there really is a Master of Science in Healthcare Administration, I'd just never heard of it. There are so many Masters for this and that, it's so hard to keep up with who and what.

I really believe Healthcare Administration and Health Services Administration are relatively close in nature - if not dead on but there may be someone out there who'd disagree.

At any rate, good job with your research. Perhaps Matt (original posting) will notice this info and take a look at the site. However, I believe his main concern is whether or not a Masters in this field would be valuable. I'd like to think it would be.

 

DesElms,
St. Joseph's has been around a long time and is quite well respected in the nursing community. Although I was not familiar with the admin program, I have long had high regard for their ability to establish an excellent health care/health services administration curriculum. After reviewing the course work required for the Masters in Health Services Administration, on the link you provided, I would say it is excellent and would prepare an individual to meet the needs of administration in health care (hospital, outpatient, or public health).

Matt,
The actual answer to your question is partly where you live, the local health care system, and the local politics. If you are willing to relocate, it is more a question of creativity. What is your undergraduate degree?

 

Good morning!

I believe you may have online or short residency options at schools including (but not limited to) the University of Maryland University College (see http://www.umuc.edu/grad/hcad/hcad_home.shtml for more information), the Rochester Institute of Technology (see http://online.rit.edu/courses/programs/view.cfm?program_uuid=F36B6933-E867-0AFE-165687-F7244072CE on the web), and Seton Hall (see http://www.setonworldwide.net/page/PFPD+MHA+Directors+Message!OpenDocument for a program description).

If you live near one of the locations noted below, you might consider a Master of Science in Administration with a major in Health Services Administration from Central Michigan University.

GA: Atlanta Metro Center
2812 Spring Road, Suite 100
Emerson Center, Suite 100
Atlanta, GA 30339
(770) 438-0505 x 104

GA: Fort Gordon
741 Barnes Avenue
DHR-Education & Career Development Div., Attn: CMU
Fort Gordon, GA 30905-5316
(706) 798-5739

HI: Hickam
900 Hangar Avenue
Hickam Education Center, 15 MSS/DPE
Hickam AFB, HI 96853-5246
(808) 422-6118

LA: Fort Polk
7460 Colorado Avenue
Room 129
Fort Polk, LA 71459
(337) 537-5713

MB: Red River College
2055 Notre Dame
Winnipeg, MB R3H 0J9
(989) 774-7345

MD: Aberdeen
4305 Susquehanna Avenue
Room 209
Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21005-5001
(410) 272-1532

MD: Andrews AFB
1413 Arkansas Road
Room 101, 89 MSS/DPE
Andrews AFB, MD 20762
(301) 568-0545

MI: Auburn Hills
3254 University Drive
Suite 195 (Wellington Green)
Auburn Hills, MI 48326
(248) 364-4230

MI: Clinton Twshp.
44575 Garfield Road
Room 202, University Center at MCC
Clinton Twp., MI 48038-1139
(586) 228-3160

MI: Dearborn
One Parklane Blvd.
Suite 122 East, Parklane Towers
Dearborn, MI 48126-2402
(313) 441-5300

MI: Flint
5161 Gateway Centre
Suite 100
Flint, MI 48507
(810) 235-7530

MI: Lansing
2651 Coolidge Road
Suite 250
East Lansing, MI 48823-6316
(517) 337-8360

MI: Livonia
38695 Seven Mile Road
Suite 120
Livonia, MI 48152-7097
(734) 464-5900

MI: Saginaw
6200 State Street
Suite 4
Saginaw, MI 48603
(989) 790-0200

MI: Southfield
26555 Evergreen Road
Travelers Tower - Suite 119
Southfield, MI 48076-4204
(248) 357-8600

MI: Troy
755 W. Big Beaver Road
Top of Troy, Suite 114
Troy, MI 48084-4903
(248) 244-1240

MI: Warren
12220 E. 13 Mile Road
Regency Two, Suite 200
Warren, MI 48093-5000
(586) 558-4300

MO: Kansas City
8080 Ward Parkway
Suite 110
Kansas City, MO 64114
(816) 361-3040

NC: Fort Bragg
Ft. Bragg Community Center
Bldg. 1-3571, Room 8
Fort Bragg, NC 28307-5000
(910) 497-2065

ND : Grand Forks
344 Tuskegee Airman Blvd.
MSS/DPE
Grand Forks AFB , ND 58205-6336
(701) 594-5715

ND : Minot
210 Missile Avenue
5 MSS/DPE, Suite 201
Minot AFB , ND 58705-5026
(701) 727-5535

NE : Offutt
106 Peacekeeper Drive, Suite 806
Base Education Center
Offutt AFB , NE 68113
(402) 293-1003

NJ: McGuire AFB
Bldg. 1911 East 4th Street
McGuire AFB, NJ 08641-5065
(609) 723-8100

NY: Fort Hamilton
218 Marshall Drive, Fort Hamilton Army Base
U.S. Army Education Center - 2nd Floor, Attn: CMU
Brooklyn, NY 11252-5190
(718) 748-8386

OH: Columbus
P.O. Box 3990
Bldg. 11 Section 9
Columbus, OH 43218-3990
(614) 235-1645

OH: Shawnee State
940 Second Street
Portsmouth, OH 45662
(614) 235-1645

OH: Wright Patterson
2155 Fifth Street, Bldg. 50A, Area B
88 MSS/DPEE-B
Wright Patterson AFB, OH 45433-7024
(937) 252-5600

TN: Med-Memphis
1003 Monroe Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(877) 679-1268, ext.

VA: Fort Belvoir
9625 Belvoir Road, Bldg. 1017, Suite. 139
P.O. Box 1228, Army Education Center
Fort Belvoir, VA 22060-1598
(703) 360-5336

VA: Maryview
3636 High Street
Portsmouth, VA 23703
(877) 679-1268

VA: Richmond
7325 Beaufont Springs Drive
Suite 101
Richmond, VA 23225
(804) 327-9330

Disclosure: I earned my master's degree from CMU. Depending on course selection, some classes are done in weekend, evening, or online format. If you would like to see more information on the program, see http://www.cel.cmich.edu/programs/concentrations.html?dc=MSA&cc=542 on the web.

Good luck in your search!

 

Good morning again!

The original post focused on career issues, and several of the students in my master's degree program were studying the health services administration major specifically to advance their careers. I recall that one of their top reasons to earn the degree was to become promotable from staff-level positions to management or director-level positions.

On a related note, a family member commented that there are some very good opportunities in this field, but it would be very helpful to have some healthcare-related experience. This background would be useful not only to obtain the position, but also to perform the work in which stakeholders with divergent perspectives must coexist in order to provide high-quality patient care. Consider, for example, whether a doctor, a nurse, a managed care representative, and a coder would have the same opinion on additional diagnostic testing or in-patient versus out-patient care.

Good luck on your research regarding career opportunities, education, and decisions!

 

With any luck, the master's degree about which we're talking here would give the coder somewhat of a broader view. But that's not really why I'm making another post here...

I could be wrong, but I'll be dollars to donuts (preferably Krispy Kreme, thankyouverymuch) that even someone who hadn't set foot in a hospital more than 3 times in his life could get a decent healthcare administrative position by getting the masters degree that I mentioned earlier, and then applying at one of these places. If a Sisters-of-Mercy-owned facility won't give preference to a Masters in Health Services Administration from one of its own universities, then what's favoritism for in the first place? [grin]

Seriously, I've got to believe that a degree-holder from a Sisters-of-Mercy-owned university would have at least some kind of leg up at a Sisters-of-Mercy-owned healthcare facility; and the only reason I point it out is that it might be a way for someone with no healthcare background, but with the aforementioned masters, to break in to healthcare. Once one had done some time at one of those facilities, s/he would have the requisite healthcare background -- as well as the degree -- at the next job for which s/he applies.

Just lookin' for shortcuts wherever they may happen to be.

 

..."I've got to believe that a degree-holder from a Sisters-of-Mercy-owned university would have at least some kind of leg up at a Sisters-of-Mercy-owned healthcare facility;...Just lookin' for shortcuts wherever they may happen to be."

DesElms,
Your mention of the Sisters-of-Mercy takes me back to my first job. I was trained in a 3 year (+summers) hospital diploma program originally run by the Sisters of Charity at St. Vincent's Hospital in NYC. It included considerably more nursing training than an individual who attended a BSN program and we had rotations in areas that are generally not given in a basic RN program, such as Operating Room and Emergency Room. I applied to work in the OR when I graduated. It was a natural - one of their own nurses who had already been trained in their OR - however, several months before I graduated they changed their policy to require 1 year Med/Surg experience before being hired into an OR position. So they were hiring nurses from local university-based based programs who had two years (no summers) of actual nursing, no OR training and were not already oriented to their unit. (They also had a higher salary because there was a differential for a BSN degree.) The nurse recruiter assumed I would stay at their hospital working in Med/Surg and re-apply in one year. I didn't. I went to work in an OR in another hospital and to whom I have been exceeding loyal for many years. St. Vincent's loss IMHO.

Healthcare admin (in hospitals, in particular) is its own specialty and there is the tendency amongst administrators to keep out anyone who may be biased in favor of the human side of the business. That is, the business should be run as if we were producing wigits, so individuals with experience actually taking care of patients (i.e. nursing, medicine, technicians) who might upset the apple cart, are not favored for hire. It is much easier for administrators to hire someone who believe that when you put the wigit into the box it will stay in the box. Anyone who has had any real patient care experience will be quick to tell you that a patient is not a wigit. I will be doing surveys next year and will actually be learning more about this, however, this has been my observation over the years. Someone who has a focus toward business and can tabulate all the numbers (dollars, beds, cost-savings, etc) without the complicating factor of knowing that people's lives are being affected, is much easier to handle as an employee. These are the ones who seem to progress nicely in admin. The realities of this picture, however, is strongly affected by where you live and what the healthcare in your part of the country is doing, which is why I asked the questions about where Matt lives, intends to work, undergraduate degree, etc. Someone with an accounting, economics, business undergrad degree with a Masters in Health Care Admin, Health Services Admin, etc is in a very strong position.

I am, however, going to spend the rest of my life trying to educate people to avoid taking shortcuts in healthcare because I do have a clinical bias - I can count beds but I cannot see healthcare without including patients in that picture and they are definitely not wigits.

 

Deb,

So, to cut to the chase, here, you seem to be saying that unless an administrator comes up through the ranks of those with hands-on patient care experience, they cannot possibly have sufficient empathy or compassion to do with job without inadvertently hurting people. Is that about it?

Am I the only one around here who finds that insulting? And I'm not even in healthcare... at least not to speak of, anymore.

Look, there's no question that it is precisely the kind of attitude on the part of administrative bean counters -- be they experienced in hands-on healthcare or not -- of which you speak that has, in part, made our healthcare system the dispassionate, patient-insensitive debacle that it has truly become; and I confess to have met more administrators who came up through the business world who tended to be idiots than were those who cut their teeth in healthcare. But to suggest, categorically, that only hands-on-experienced-nurses-turned-administrators (or their functional equivalent, whatever that would be) could possibly "get it" is absurd... and insulting to those who aren't nurses, yet "get it" just fine.

Maybe what we should all be advocating, here, is that before anyone can ascend to a powerful healthcare administrative position, s/he should not only be required to have the requisite masters degree of the sort we've been discussing here, but s/he should also be required to score highly on some kind of test which measures one's marginal propensity toward empathy and/or compassion (were such an animal to exist). My point is that they're fundamentally unrelated issues.

While it may seem logical to presume otherwise, I don't think a person's having once been a hands-on healthcare provider is necessarily an accurate (or even an adequate) predictor of one's penchant for practical empathy and/or compassion; or his/her predisposition for making either of those things a strongly-influencing factor in his/her management style or decisions.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Who knows.

Anyway, I don't mean to seem disrespectful or that I think what you wrote it stupid or anything. And I don't want to start an argument, here. But it's just folly to suggest that only nurses and/or other hands-on healthcare providers have a heart and, therefore, should be entrusted with the powerful administrative positions. Nor does it mean they should not. Empathy and compassion can be found everywhere and in all positions or classes thereof in healthcare... as can callousness and indifference.

 

I am, however, going to spend the rest of my life trying to educate people to avoid taking shortcuts in healthcare because I do have a clinical bias - I can count beds but I cannot see healthcare without including patients in that picture and they are definitely not wigits.

Debtormey,

Can you explain what you mean by a person taking shortcuts in healthcare based on your clinical bias?

In your opinion, do you think a person who has had some clinical background and bedside manners would become more of an asset with a degree of any kind (bachelor's or masters) in Healthcare Administration/Healthservices Administration?

 

DesElms,
The topic was whether a person without a background in healthcare could succeed in healthcare administration. The answer to that question is yes. I was further shedding light on a situation that is not intuitive, that is, a person without a healthcare background might actually have an advantage over someone with a background in healthcare in obtaining a job in administration.

Medgal,
Shortcut example: There was a great desire to shorten the time patients spend in the ER after being admitted. Stretchers are not comfortable and no one disagreed that moving patients into the hospital quickly would be a good thing. There was tremendous compassion and concern for the comfort of the patients waiting on the stretchers. A satellite office of the admissions department was set in the ER and there was close coordination of discharges and bed cleanings. Once the bed was ready to receive the patient, an admitting form was faxed to the nurses station on the admitting floor and the transporter brought the patient up to the floor right in front of the nursing station. Patient wait time in the ER improved dramatically. Administration was planning to use the wait time in an advertising campaign to demonstrate how the hospital was making strides to improve patient comfort. A business success story. But not the end of the story. The fax had not been received, no one knew that the patient needed to be placed on telemetry (heart monitoring), the patient (a dynamic non-wigit) had an arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat) that was not detected early and the patient died.


The degree question: I am in favor of higher education and believe that a degree of any kind is an asset to each of us, whether we are "clinical" or not. But I do not believe I understand exactly what you are asking. Could you rephrase the question?
On a personal note: I have told you how much more nursing training I had in a diploma program than my BSN counterparts. One of the reasons I went on to obtain a BSN was so I could have personal experience and write about how much better a diploma was than a BSN. I was wrong. The BSN contributed more to my education (in nursing) than I could possibly have imagined.

 

Deb,

Sorry for not making my question clear - however, you definitely answered the question in response to DesElm's comments. I was just wondering what your views were regarding someone with no healthcare background suceeding in an administrative postion in healthcare as opposed to someone with a healthcare background going the same route; with either a bachelor's or masters degree.

I'm aiming for my bachelor's in Healthcare Administration and maybe, just maybe I'll be lucky enough to land a position within the hospital I work for now. It'd be nice.

 

medgal,
Do what you love. That goes for your day-to-day work and for your educational choices. Regarding education - go for the highest level you can afford. You will do great.

 

Deb,

Thank you.