Master of Health Administration (MHA)

This program is offered by the George Herbert Walker School of Business and Technology. It is available via Live Virtual (100% synchronous modality), at the St. Louis main campus and at select U.S.and international campuses. Please see the Campus Locations and Offerings section of this catalog for a list of campuses where this program is offered.

Program Description

MHA Mission Statement

The mission of the Master of Health Administration (MHA) Program is to provide students from a variety of backgrounds, who have work experience in areas relevant to healthcare, with the academic and professional preparation they need to achieve upward career mobility in hospitals and related healthcare organizations. 

MHA Vision Statement

The Master of Health Administration (MHA) Program aspires to be nationally recognized as a leading provider of health administration for adult learners. 

MHA Values Statement

• Respect: A culture of respect facilitates highly positive interactions between and among students, staff, faculty and other stakeholders.
• Knowledge: Knowledge allows us all, regardless of the role we serve, to maximize our abilities to achieve success.
• Potential: With proper guidance and support every individual has the potential to succeed.
• Diversity and Inclusion: Diversity in all its forms enriches the educational experience — in the classroom and outside in the work environment. 

Competencies

The Webster University Master of Health Administration program focuses on those competencies most aligned with the skills, knowledge and abilities commonly required for health administration positions in provider-based health care organizations. The Program's competency model is comprised of three dimensions (People, Management and Strategy) and includes 13 competencies. With each competency, we have identified the competency target level (1=beginning level of competency, 2=basic, and 3=professional).

People Dimension

1, Community Orientation: The ability to identify organizational priorities that align with the needs and values of the community. (target level 2)

2. Communication: The ability to effectively convey and receive information from others, including the essential components of active listening and clarity in writing and speaking. (target level 3)

3 Organizational Behavior: The ability to understand the way in which actions can impact and influence individuals and groups of individuals within organizations. (target level 3)

4. Human Resources: The ability to identify human resource management contemporary best practices, human resource related legal and regulatory requirements, and techniques for optimizing the performance of the workforce. (target level 2)

Management Dimension

5. Leading and Managing: The ability to identify appropriate methods for effectively influencing individuals and/or groups within an organization to take positive action toward supporting or achieving intended outcomes. (target level 3)

6. Finance: The ability to understand and explain financial and accounting information, determine the impact of varying reimbursement methods on revenue, identify strategies to improve the revenue cycle, and prepare and analyze budgets.(target level 1)

7. Marketing: The ability to understand the process by which organizations conceive, price, promote and distribute goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives. (target level 1)

8. Information Technology: The ability to understand the role and function of administrative and clinical information technology in healthcare delivery. (target level 1)

9. Quantitative Analysis: The ability to analyze and interpret quantitative information as a means of understanding and measuring organizational performance. (target level 1)

10. Legal Principles: The ability to recognize common areas of legal risk. (target level 2)

Strategy Dimension

11. Strategic Planning: The ability to develop strategies that have the potential to improve the long-term success and viability of the organization. (target level 3)

12. Quality and Performance Improvement: The ability to effectively apply process improvement techniques. (target level 2)

13. Health Policy: The ability to understand the impact of select health policies on the delivery of healthcare services. (target level 2)

Learning Outcomes

• Students will be able to explain healthcare leadership styles and demonstrate effective communication skills that are required in managing effective teams and in predicting human behavior in an organization.
• Students will be able to apply health care management skills in problem solving, decision making, planning, delegating and managing time. 
• Students will be able to incorporate strategic thinking to set priorities, focus energy and resources, and strengthen operations, in order to ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working toward common goals, and to operationalize healthcare organization's mission and vision. 

Program Curriculum

The 42 credit hours required for the Master of Health Administration (MHA) follow this sequence of courses:

In addition, the student chooses 2 elective courses offered in this major and/or from the program curricula of other George Herbert Walker School of Business & Technology majors.

High Impact Learning Experiences

Webster MHA courses have signature learning experiences. For example, students in the HLTH 6000 capstone course work in teams to develop a comprehensive strategic plan for a complex healthcare organization. Students perform extensive internal, external and competitive analysis to identify issues and solutions using the strategic planning process. The final project includes financial plans, marketing plans, action steps and quality measurements. Students write a final paper and make a formal presentation of the plan to faculty and classmates. Other MHA courses have similar high impact learning experiences associated with the content studied in each course. 

Dual Degree Option: MBA/MHA

63 to 66 Credit Hours

Requirements for a dual degree with the MBA program generally include the required MBA courses (33 hours) and the required coursework in the additional degree program, except where noted below. If BUSN 5000 has been waived, the required hours are reduced by 3 credits and the BUSN 5000 course does not require a substitution.

Upon completion of all required credit hours, two separate diplomas are issued at the same time. The two degrees cannot be awarded separately or sequentially under this arrangement.

• BUSN 5000 Business (3 hours)
• MBA 5010 Value Creation (3 hours)
• MBA 5030 Market Analysis and Business Planning (3 hours)
• MBA 5100 Adding Value through Human Capital (3 hours)
• MBA 5200 The Financial Value of Capital Projects (3 hours)
• MBA 5300 Providing Value to Customers (3 hours)
• MBA 5400 The Supply Chain and Business Processes (3 hours)
• MBA 5500 Information Support for Decision Making (3 hours)
• MBA 5910 Cases in Value Creation (3 hours)
• MBA 5920 Walker Consulting Project: Adding Value to Organizations (3 hours)
• HLTH 5000 Organization and Management in Health Administration (3 hours)
• BUSN 6150 Business Communications and Technology (3 hours)
• HLTH 5040 Human Resources Management in Health Administration (3 hours)
• HLTH 5050 Financial Management in Health Administration* (3 hours)
• HLTH 5070 Financial Analysis in Health Administration (3 hours)
• HLTH 5120 Issues in Health Policy (3 hours)
• HLTH 5100 Statistics for Health Administration* (3 hours)
• HLTH 5130 Healthcare Strategy and Marketing (3 hours)
• HLTH 5140 Health Administration Law (3 hours)
• HLTH 5150 Process Improvement in Health Administration (3 hours)
• HLTH 5160 Health Informatics (3 hours)
• HLTH 6000 Integrated Studies in Health Administration (3 hours)

*HLTH 5050 and HLTH 5100 substitute for MBA 5020.

Dual Degree Option: MSN/MHA

60 credit hours

Program Description

The MSN/MHA dual degree is designed for the nurses desiring to earn a master's degree, and who have interest in nursing leadership and healthcare administration. The program focuses on the business of healthcare with an emphasis on high quality and safe patient care delivery and outcomes. Students will attain a broad conceptual understanding of the health care industry and develop specific, focused administrative skills that will help them to guide health care organizations toward greater efficiency, effectiveness and positive patient and organizational outcomes.
 
Students will complete the MSN and MHA courses simultaneously and courses are offered in the Live Virtual format. Graduation will take place once all course requirements for the dual degree have been completed, approximately four years. Current MSN or MHA students who meet the admission requirements and wish to switch to the dual degree will follow the same MSN/MHA dual degree program requirements and course schedule. It may be possible students that switch to the dual degree that have already completed coursework will accrue greater than the number of courses/credit hours needed to complete the dual degree as not all courses already completed will apply to the dual degree; the courses required for the MSN/MHA dual degree were designed per accreditation requirements. Should a student decide to drop one of the programs, the courses completed to that point would be transferable and count toward the single degree completion at the discretion of the individual program. Additional single program course requirements may be required by the department.  

Course Requirements

MSN Degree Course Requirements (24 credits)

• NURN 5005 Collaboration and Communication (3 hours)
• NURN 5210 Strategies to Facilitate Learning (3 hours)
• NURN 5340 Population Health (3 hours)
• NURN 5370 Quality and Safety in Healthcare (3 hours)
• NURN 5380 Pathophysiology and Application 1 (3 hours)
• NURN 5390 Pathophysiology and Application 2 (3 hours)
• NURN 5550 Translating Evidence to Practice (3 hours)
• *NURN 5450 Practicum in the Nurse Leader Role II (3 hours) 

MHA Degree Course Requirements (36 credits)

• HLTH 5000 Organization and Management in Health Administration (3 hours)
• BUSN 6150 Business Communications and Technology (3 hours)
• HLTH 5040 Human Resources Management in Health Administration (3 hours)
• HLTH 5050 Financial Management in Health Administration (3 hours)
• HLTH 5070 Financial Analysis in Health Administration (3 hours)
• HLTH 5120 Issues in Health Policy (3 hours)
• HLTH 5100 Statistics for Health Administration (3 hours)
• HLTH 5130 Healthcare Strategy and Marketing (3 hours)
• HLTH 5140 Health Administration Law (3 hours)
• HLTH 5150 Process Improvement in Health Administration (3 hours)
• HLTH 5160 Health Informatics (3 hours)
• *HLTH 6000 Integrated Studies in Health Administration (3 hours)

*Practicum Requirements/Prerequisite: MSN students will complete HLTH 6000 followed by NURN 5450.

Admission

See the Admission section of this catalog for general admission requirements. Students interested in applying must submit their application online at www.webster.edu/apply. Transcripts should be sent from your institution electronically to transcripts@webster.edu. If this service is not available, send transcripts to:

Office of Admission
Webster University
470 E. Lockwood Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63119 

Additional Requirements

Advancement to Candidacy

Students are admitted to their graduate program upon completion of all admission requirements. Students are advanced to candidacy status after successfully completing 12 credit hours with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher. In specialized programs, courses required as prerequisites to the program do not count toward the 12 credit hours required for advancement.