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Healthcare MBA

The newly formed Chambers College Healthcare MBA is a 39 credit hour program, delivered fully online, that can be completed in under two years. The flexible format allows students to maintain momentum in their career while pursuing their degree.

The Chambers College will not be admitting students in the HMBA for 2023-2024

The healthcare industry in the United States is an estimated $3.65T or 17.9 percent of the total US GDP, and it is projected to grow to 19.4 percent of the US GDP by 2027.  The growth in the industry is in parallel with significant disruptions such as technology-induced disruptions, payer changes that cause medical business model disturbances, aging populations, costly location-based epidemiological crises, impactful government regulatory change, and rampant fraud, among other issues.  The industry needs trained leaders to manage diverse teams, to successfully navigate the business of healthcare, to lead across the many challenging transitions and to provide innovative solutions that improve the healthcare system in order to more readily support positive health outcomes.

Professional opportunities, such as medical and health service managers, are expected to grow by 20% over the next decade. This new HMBA program is designed for those seeking a career in the healthcare industry or current healthcare professionals who want to expand and formalize their business of healthcare skillset to take on leadership roles within their organization.

Courses and Program Description

The program includes 33 credit hours of core courses that represent graduate-level course work in all the functional areas of business, delivered with a healthcare focus, where students will take deep dives in cases, assignments and real word applications of the business of healthcare. The program is taught by expert faculty who understand the intersection of business and healthcare and executive professionals who are industry leaders. The remaining 6 credit hours are made up of an elective and an application course. The program offers electives in the areas of business intelligence, business cyber security and strategic communication. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to apply the knowledge they’ve acquired through the program in either an applied executive project or an innovation course. The online courses are delivered in 8-week segments that are primarily asynchronous but will offer students the opportunity to work in talented teams and participate in virtual synchronous experiential learning.

Curriculum

Managerial and Team Skills (2 credits, BADM 612) Introduces, develops, and enhances managerial skills for complex healthcare organizations. Explores managerial philosophies, one's own managerial style, and the dynamics of working groups and teams in a healthcare setting.

Financial Statement Analysis (3 credits, BADM 622) Provides an overview of the current financial reporting process in a healthcare environment. Includes discussion of the respective reporting vehicles, financial statements, key financial ratios in healthcare industry, and the alternatives available which affect the reporting process.

Principles and Practices of Healthcare Financial Management (3 credits, New course) This course focuses on financial management of healthcare organizations, this includes budgeting, financial reporting, third party payers, risk management, matching resources to operations, capitalization of healthcare projects and other elements of financial decision making.

Business Research (3 credits, BADM 621)  Develops skills in data- driven, fact-based decision making; develops the ability to critically evaluate research proposals and studies which rely on business research; provides a basic understanding of reading and conducting empirical research in a healthcare setting.

Management Science and Health Services (3 credits, BADM 646) A quantitative course utilizing and building upon applied mathematical skills in solving managerial business problems and decision-making situations in a health service environment.  The course will give the students modeling tools that facilitate optimization of resources under constraint, queueing theory, game theory modeling, PERT and CPM tools, and more. 

Management Information Systems (2 credits, BADM 611) This course focuses on the management of information and technology in healthcare settings, and uses case analysis, and hands-on exercises to explore software tools used in business decision-making.  Topics will include the calculation of an ROI for technology in healthcare, the healthcare RFP, redundancy and reliability considerations, records retention and healthcare management dashboards. 

Health Economics (4 credits, BADM 626) The context of health care; the use of economic methods to understand the organization of the industry and the behaviors of its participants (consumers, producers, and regulators).

Law and Medicine (2 credits, BADM 656) An overview of general principles of law applicable to the delivery of financing in health care and an analysis of specific applications to those principles.

Marketing Strategy (2 credits, BADM 634) Application of marketing concepts to a healthcare environment to enhance understanding of market-driven organizations with emphasis on the process of planning and executing then conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods and services

Optimization of Healthcare Systems Management (3 credits, BADM 614) This course offers students an introduction to environmental issues, organizational structures, and financial control mechanisms that affect the healthcare management process. 

Healthcare Leadership and Cultural Competency (3 credits, BAM 6XX) This course is designed to develop cultural competencies in leaders to drive diversity as a core component of excellence in health care.

Operations and Supply Chain Management (3 credits, BADM 638) Considers the concepts of supply chain management and the design/operation of productive systems. Emphasizes quality, competitiveness, and their implications for strategy and the use of analysis tools of management science and statistics.

Electives (3 credit hours)

Business Intelligence (3 credits, BUDA 510) This course provides the foundations for an understanding of Business Data Analytics, giving an overview of the field by covering key concepts including: foundations and technologies of business decision making, data mining, data warehousing, visual analytics, predictive modeling, text analytics, text mining, sentiment analysis, web analytics, business intelligence decision modeling techniques and solutions, expert systems, knowledge management and future technologies.

Business Networking Security (3 credits, CYBR 535) This course prepares graduate students to be effective leaders in business network security management. This course focuses on a practical, managerial approach to assessing and maintaining security in organizational networks and private and public cloud infrastructures. The student is expected to learn, think and act as an executive level manager applying network security technologies, controls and policies.

Strategic Communications (3 credits, BADM 658) The course provides a study of public relations, reputation management and communication. The course includes an introduction to communication strategy, function and performance. Students will be introduced to the principles of executive and personal branding; media relations; community relations; multicultural and multigenerational communication; integrated marketing communication; crisis communication; social media; and how organizations manage relationships with important audiences.

Application (3 credit hours, select one)

  • Executive Project for Healthcare Administration (3 credits, BADM 661/662) This course provides an opportunity to develop and demonstrate project management skills through the preparation and presentation of a feasibility study of a proposed project/business implementation plan in a healthcare setting.
  • Innovation and Commercialization in Healthcare (3 credits, new course) This course will focus on the ideation, innovation and commercialization of a healthcare business technology or product that is designed to support better health outcomes and systems.

Military
Friendly

Whether you are a veteran, a reservist, a National Guardsman, or still serving on active duty, West Virginia University is a great place to further your education. The Military Times ranked WVU as the 19th Best College for Vets in 2022. At WVU you will find faculty, staff, and students who want to support you and help you succeed.

WVU offers several resources for current and former military personnel and incentives for online programs as well.

Affordability.

West Virginia University has worked hard to make its programs affordable for military personnel and veterans. WVU is a Yellow Ribbon Program participant, meaning that the university agrees to waive a portion of tuition not covered by the GI Bill. Unlike most universities, WVU participates in the program for all graduate and professional programs. Additionally, the John Chambers College of Business and Economics offers a $100 discount per credit hour to all current and former service personnel pursuing the Healthcare MBA program.

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