Healthcare Administration
In concert with Mount Saint Mary’s commitment to building leadership skills and fostering a spirit of service, MSMU’s Master of Science in Healthcare Administration program will prepare a diverse group of health leaders and administrators who promote effective care systems, champion effective health policies, and create and apply evidence-based knowledge that serves and improves the health of people and communities in California and beyond. This mission flows from the graduate school and Mount Saint Mary’s larger vision:
[to] offer a dynamic learning experience in the liberal arts and sciences to a diverse student body and we are dedicated to providing a superior education enhanced by an emphasis on building leadership skills and fostering a spirit to serve others. Our measure of success is graduates who are committed to using their knowledge and skills to better themselves, their environments, and the world.
Integration of the Liberal Arts
The Master of Science in Healthcare Administration (HCA) program incorporates an understanding of the needs of a population and the concerns of family, significant others, and communities through valuing and supporting the individual’s decisions with his/her health care and advocating for the client. Students are exposed to complex cultural issues and are able to respond to the needs of various groups. In addition, the HCA curriculum presents various theories including ethical frameworks which support the adherence to one’s ethical and moral values to ensure safety and quality for the clients. Knowledge and skills from information sciences, health communication, and health literacy are utilized by master’s-prepared policy analysts and managers in their practice.
Program Goals & Outcomes
Core Competencies
Upon graduation, students in our Healthcare Administration program will be able to:
- Identify the main components and issues of the organization, financing and delivery of health services and public health systems in the US.
- Describe the legal and ethical bases for public health and health services.
- Explain methods of ensuring community health safety and preparedness.
- Discuss the policy process for improving the health status of populations.
- Apply the principles of program planning, development, budgeting, management and evaluation in organizational and community initiatives.
- Apply principles of strategic planning and marketing to public health.
- Apply quality and performance improvement concepts to address organizational performance issues.
- Apply "systems thinking" for resolving organizational problems.
- Communicate health policy and management issues using appropriate channels and technologies.
10. Demonstrate leadership skills for building partnerships.
Interdisciplinary Competencies
Our students will also be able to:
- collect, manage and organize data to produce information and meaning that is exchanged by use of signs and symbols; to gather, process, and present information to different audiences in-person, through information technologies, or through media channels; and to strategically design the information and knowledge exchange process to achieve specific objectives (Communication and Informatics).
- interact with both diverse individuals and communities to produce or impact an intended public health outcome (Diversity and Culture).
- create and communicate a shared vision for a changing future; champion solutions to organizational and community challenges; and energize commitment to goals. (Leadership)
- demonstrate ethical choices, values and professional practices implicit in public health decisions; consider the effect of choices on community stewardship, equity, social justice and accountability; and to commit to personal and institutional development. (Professionalism).
- plan for the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of strategies to improve individual and community health (Program Planning).
- recognize system level properties that result from dynamic interactions among human and social systems and how they affect the relationships among individuals, groups, organizations, communities, and environments (Systems Thinking).