Master of Healthcare Administration

100% Online

Master of Healthcare Administration

Earn your Master of Healthcare Administration from New England’s premier health sciences university and Maine’s #1 provider of health professionals.

The University of New England Online’s Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) cultivates career-ready professionals prepared to advance the healthcare industry and shape its future through leadership, innovative technologies, healthcare planning, health policy and regulation.

The Master of Healthcare Administration program is delivered 100% online, and is suited to meet the needs of students with busy schedules. UNE Online’s MHA program has been designed to benefit both career changers and those currently serving the field.

Professionals with a Master of Healthcare Administration are in high demand. The healthcare industry is facing an immediate need for competent professionals with advanced business skills and management expertise who can examine the latest technologies to transform quality and access to care for their communities. UNE Online’s MHA students develop these skills and the in-demand ability to create efficient strategies for using and organizing key healthcare resources.

The MHA program at UNE Online offers global education and develops competent and confident health professionals through scholarly research, collaborative learning, and career training. Our graduates are prepared to shape all sectors of the healthcare industry and bring solutions to current challenges facing the field.

UNE Online’s specific program goals are for students to:

  1. Create plans and procedures that directly address modern healthcare challenges in managing diverse healthcare organizations
  2. Conceptualize healthcare management strategies utilizing core business and organizational management skills
  3. Generate healthcare administrative policies appropriate at different organizational levels, guided by required processes and methods of community and stakeholder engagement
  4. Synthesize proven leadership methods for effectively developing, communicating with, and motivating diverse audiences

APPLY NOW

Request More Information

Current Application Deadline

April 15, 2024

Summer A Session

Courses begin May 8, 2024

Time Left to Apply:

Apply Now

Why Choose the University of New England Online?

Fully Online

Fully Online

Courses are delivered fully online, allowing you to complete coursework around your schedule.

Flexible Course Options

Flexible Course Options

Students can customize their degree by choosing elective courses based on their professional interests.

HIMSS Approved Education Partner

HIMSS Approved Education Partner

We are proud be a part of an exclusive group of organizations authorized to offer HIMSS-approved healthcare education and training programs.

Supportive

Supportive

Students will have an academic advisor to help with course selection based on their individual needs, and will benefit from engaged faculty and a student support team.

Master of Healthcare Administration

Students of the Master of Healthcare Administration graduate as competent, capable and multi-faceted leaders. Our graduates are able to demonstrate proficiency in:

Healthcare Planning

  • Assessing healthcare strategic planning problems to develop comprehensive and practical solutions
  • Evaluating strategies for increasing the reliability of healthcare processes, including using technology

Healthcare Management

  • Demonstrating mastery of leadership skills and tactics required of healthcare managers and executives in the current healthcare environment
  • Evaluating operational and capital budgets for a health care facility, including sources of capital funding and costs, and create budget action plans informed by those analyses

Healthcare Policy

  • Evaluating significant policies that have shaped the American healthcare system
  • Critically evaluate healthcare interests and goals to analyze, formulate, and advocate for policies that advance human rights and social, economic, and environmental justice

Healthcare Leadership

  • Demonstrating how to promote quality and a culture of patient safety
  • Demonstrating effective methods for developing and motivating diverse audiences within healthcare settings to improve organizational agility

The UNE Online Experience

I’ve found that the MHA program has allowed me to pair the development of a leadership skill set with the public health focus that I’m really passionate about. My MHA will help me to stand out in the job market, especially with its similarities to an MBA.

Brittany Brown, MHA

Admissions

Successful applicants to UNE Online’s Master of Healthcare Administration will possess a strong understanding of the role healthcare plays in advancing community health, a demonstrated ability to succeed academically, and the capacity to master a broad range of disciplines crucial for career success.

We review applicants in a comprehensive manner, taking into consideration their previous academic coursework, professional experiences and application materials.

Admission Requirements:

  • Bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited institution.
  • No GRE Required

How to Apply:

Create an Online Portal Account to begin your application. To complete your online application you will need:

  • Current Resume/CV
  • Goal Statement/Essay: 500-1000 word essay describing your goals, relevant professional experience, and interest in advanced learning in your chosen field. Applicants should also address their capacity to succeed in a distance learning format.
  • Two professional/academic references
  • Official transcripts
  • Apply now for free!

APPLY NOW

Master of Healthcare Administration Curriculum

The Master of Healthcare Administration has the potential to be completed in 18-24 months. Each semester is made up of two eight-week terms. MHA students typically take one course per term (two courses a semester). Students in the accelerated program have the option to enroll in two courses per term. Students will work with their program support specialist for guidance on the best course pace for their particular case.

All MHA students must complete 9 required core courses, including a capstone project. Additionally, students choose 3 elective courses, personalizing their degree to their interests.

This course provides an overview of the history, challenges, and opportunities facing healthcare administrators today. Topics will include the ongoing transition from a pay-for-services model of healthcare delivery to accountable care networks, emerging public health and healthcare partnerships, and the need for analytics that can address the particular characteristics of big health data..

This course introduces students to central health informatics tools, techniques, and concepts used to improve health outcomes through technology. Students explore various healthcare technology platforms, how data is used in healthcare, and how the need for cybersecurity and health data privacy shape the information infrastructure that powers modern healthcare. This course offers students a framework for deeper understanding of many of the concepts explored in subsequent coursework.

This course explores the dynamic between healthcare delivery and leveraging data for enhanced patient outcomes. Given an increased scrutiny on empirical value-based care metrics for payer reimbursement, the strategic use of data will be key in new continuum of care models. Students will complete this course with a solid understanding of healthcare quality standards, the regulations around those standards, and how they are affected by the use of technology and data analysis. Key themes will include quality improvement methodologies, measuring and interpreting quality data, strategies to increase healthcare process reliability.

This course explores the range of legal and ethical issues facing healthcare administrators and providers. Students will gain expertise analyzing legal and ethical dimensions of healthcare from administrative, clinical, and organizational perspectives. Current issues, as well as perennial conflicts in healthcare law and ethics, will provide real-world case studies for students to research and debate. Throughout the course, students will gain practice integrating core healthcare law and ethics concepts and practices into their leadership approaches to ensuring excellent patient care.

This course explores the challenges and opportunities facing healthcare leaders and organizations in an age of accountable care, and examines the critical role health data and informatics can and should play in strategic management. Using case-based study techniques, students explore practice and system management, strategic planning, and change leadership. Students combine these insights into health leadership with the actionable insights offered through effective health informatics and business intelligence practices, to craft optimal solutions to internal organizational processes and to external business decisions.

This course explores the fundamentals of finance and economics in a health care system at both the local system and national levels. Healthcare leadership increasingly depends upon deep and strategic understanding of the complex payor systems that provide revenue to their organizations. Students will gain expertise crafting strategic approaches to managing market supply and demand, the economics of care and managed care, budgeting, accounting, and fiscal reporting. 3.000 Credit hours

The implementation or integration of major projects or initiatives, such as a new healthcare technology system requires careful planning and organization. This course will provide students with widely-accepted concepts and skills that can be used and scaled to successfully complete projects of varying sizes. Through course work, students will gain experience with the common language used by professionals involved in project management. Students will explore concepts of project charter, work breakdown structures, scheduling, risk planning, and project reporting.

This course brings together graduate students in public health, education, social work, nutrition, and health informatics to work collaboratively to learn the fundamentals of policy-making as applied to the broad issue of student health in an educational setting. Students work in interprofessional groups to identify the social problem, describe the policy context, map potential policy solutions, and make final recommendations in an individually written policy analysis that incorporates learning from their interprofessional peers. Students will explore the structure and function of government systems as they relate to values-driven policy decisions.

This course is the culmination of the student’s learning throughout the Healthcare Administration program. Combining the leadership theories and practices they have studied, the challenges facing the healthcare sector they have explored, and the contextual practice they have gained through their focus area courses, students will develop a research-based inquiry into healthcare leadership that addresses a current or emerging challenge relevant to their professional goals.

 

Students can choose any 3 health-related elective courses from the list below.

A hurricane is an amazing meteorological phenomenon… until it becomes a disaster by coming in contact with humans. From an overturned tractor-trailer full of milk to a global pandemic, the philosophy of “proper prior planning prevents pathetically poor performance” applies. And that’s what emergency management does. Emergency managers and emergency management agencies are tasked with making sure that no matter what life throws at society, society is ready to respond. This course provides an introduction to the principles and practices of emergency management based on the structure developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Using a combination of readings, didactics, discussions, and participating in an interactive scenario, emergency management principles of preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation will be explored. Students will also complete FEMA training and be certified in several FEMA competencies that prepare you for work in emergency management..

Students will explore the range of social media metrics used to inform marketing campaigns and budgeting decisions. This course will provide students with skills in analyzing social media metrics and developing strategies for viable advertising and social media information dissemination campaigns. Students will gain practice with such skills as evaluating and managing the return on investment (ROI) of social media efforts, modifying campaign strategies based on the outcomes of metric analyses and data visualization, and developing effective social media presentation strategies.

This course will explore the complexities of small business development in healthcare settings and utilizing the entrepreneurial mindset within a larger organization (Intrapreneurship). Students will engage with theories of, and practical approaches to, strategic decision making and leadership. Course topics will include such key skills as developing business plans, assessing the risk of business concepts, and identifying strategies for success in competitive, traditional, and emerging markets. The course will culminate in a business plan, feasibility study, market analysis report, or other projects for the student’s professional goals.

The field of health informatics depends on advanced computing systems to collect health data and analytical sophistication to make sense of that data. This course provides students with a solid understanding of the computer science that undergirds the entire field, exploring the design and implementation of database systems and technology applications, data communications, and systems analysis. Students will learn to identify current and emerging information technologies that may have strategic value for enterprise solutions, assess where those technologies may have strategic value, and explore methods for implementing those technologies in their organizations.

This course explores in depth database basics such as the relational algebra and data model, schema normalization, query optimization, and transactions. The course addresses current needs in database design and use for optimized human-computer interaction, for rigorous security, and for robust modeling that can transform raw data into useful information. This course will also provide a deep exploration into data standards and what part that plays in the field of Informatics. Students will gain a solid understanding of, and extensive practice with, structured query language (SQL).

This course explores legislation and regulation relating to health informatics. The course will examine the major laws and agency regulations governing healthcare technology, data collection, management, and privacy, as well as the security standards required for healthcare and health-related organizations. Students will explore the intent behind, and ethical dimensions of health informatics regulatory frameworks, using case studies of recent health information uses, security breaches, and challenges to interoperability. This course will also look ahead to the impact of future Health IT regulations

Large data sets are not useful in their native state. Informaticists have to begin by defining the question that will be answered by the data and then organizing, analyzing, and visualizing the dataset. Analytics provide meaningful patterns in the data, and data visualization communicates the information clearly through graphical means. This course is designed to familiarize students with core concepts in communicating information through effective data visualization. This course introduces students to data visualization elements and best practices in data visualization using Tableau and Gephi. Students will gain hands on experience building explanatory and exploratory visualizations using healthcare data.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and the most intricate and sophisticated computer system is only as useful as its users. This course examines computer and non-computer systems from the perspective of their users, exploring ways to improve user interfaces to facilitate effective interactions between human and system, and examining ways of helping to train and educate systems users to ease the stress of learning and adapting to new systems. Students will gain practice combining ergonomics, psychology, sociology, and educational theory with interface design and systems thinking to design human-friendly interfaces and information systems.

User experience UX metrics are key to designing and improving mission-critical information systems used by many people within the organization. In this course, students will learn techniques for measuring user experience both quantitatively and qualitatively, and for analyzing that data to reveal deep understandings about user behavior with particular systems. Students will move beyond merely understanding user behavior by learning and practicing techniques for influencing user behavior toward desirable interactions and outcomes. Students will learn how measuring and influencing the user experience can significantly improve mission-critical data quantity and quality.

This course introduces students to the concept of Healthcare Consumerism, including the relationships between consumer, technology, and healthcare information. Topics covered in this course include consumer applications, mHealth, innovative wearable, consumable, peer engagement, and behavior management systems. We explore how consumers receive and engage with their healthcare data, such as PHRs, patient portals and Exchange systems.

Students in the course will examine concepts, theories, and best practices for communicating in the professional workplace. The goal of this course is to refine they are written, oral and visual communication. Participants in this course will develop strategies to create meaningful communication for a vast audience. Students will enhance their skills in natural and scholarly writing, oral presentation, and visual demonstrations.

R is an open source programming language ideally suited for analysis and visualization. This course will provide students with a foundation in data preparation and preliminary analytics using R which can be applicable for research, quality improvement and industry large-scale data analytics projects. This course will include the following skills: data analysis with publicly available data sets; cleansing and imputing data; descriptive statistics; and data visualization.

Advanced topics in health informatics leverages the concepts introduced in the Foundation course. Students will be exposed to advanced statistics, vast and diverse data sets, and data interpretation and visualization. This course will prepare students for a deeper dive into forecasting, trends, and data modeling. 3.000 Credit hours

PLACEHOLDER

PLACEHOLDER

PLACEHOLDER

 

Interprofessional Electives – Students also have the option to take electives from the rest of our online graduate programs.

Not ready for a full master’s degree commitment but still looking to accelerate your career? – Consider earning a 12-credit graduate certificate – Graduate Certificate in Health Informatics, Graduate Certificate in Healthcare Data, Graduate Certificate in Emergency Management, Graduate Certificate in Health Data Quality, Graduate Certificate in Healthcare Management, and Graduate Certificate in Health, Law, and Compliance. Each certificate is 100% online and can be completed in as few as 6 months. Students who successfully complete the graduate certificate can later “stack” earned credits into the Master of Healthcare Administration degree program.

Tuition and Fees

Program cost for The University of New England Online’s MHA degree is competitive among other schools at $830/credit,* and because all of our courses are delivered 100% online, you will not incur the cost of traveling or relocating to complete your degree. (*Note: Tuition is subject to change. Listed tuition does not include the cost of fees, books, or additional credits that may be required, etc. Contact student Financial Services to learn more.)

Cost per
Credit: $830

# of Credits: 36

Typical Cost: $29,880

 

General Services Fee (per semester, non-refundable for matriculated students)
$80
Tuition (per credit hour)
$830
Technology Fee (per semester)
$160
Registration Fee (non-matriculated students per semester)
$30

Accreditation

When choosing an institution of higher education, you want to be sure your investment will hold value upon completion. We are proud to hold NECHE (New England Commission on Higher Education) accreditation at the University of New England and for our graduate programs. NECHE Accreditation ensures a high level of academic quality and public accountability for the education being provided.

HIMSS Approved Education Partner

The University of New England is proud to join an exclusive group of organizations authorized to offer HIMSS-approved healthcare education and training programs. In earning the designation, UNE has demonstrated educational development that meets rigorous standards of quality established by HIMSS and prepares students for advanced learning of healthcare principles.

Faculty

The University of New England Online’s MHA faculty and staff are top-notch. They are a team of dedicated professionals who are active and respected in the field of Healthcare Administration. Meet the MHA Faculty

 

Student Support & Resources

At the University of New England Online, we are committed to providing our students with the highest level of academic and personal support. We understand the unique challenge of adult students who are often juggling school, career and family, which is why we offer a robust Student Academic Success Center (SASC) and high-touch academic advising. Learn more about Student Support and Resources.  

FAQ

Admissions

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, six times per year for our Healthcare Administration graduate programs. Contact an Enrollment Counselor for program and enrollment information: (866) 722-5096 or healthcareadmin@une.edu

Applications are reviewed holistically as a determination of academic readiness. The admissions committee values previous academic performance as indicated on transcripts and considers it as part of the review process.

 

Registration

The online Healthcare Administration program offers six terms of enrollment per year. Each term consists of two 8-week sessions. Students are eligible to take more than one course per session for accelerated learning.

Students taking one course per 8-week session are considered full time students, and eligible to receive financial aid.

No. The Healthcare Administration program is completed 100% online in an asynchronous format with no campus visits required. Students are welcome to visit campus and we offer all on-campus resources to online students.

 

Master of Healthcare Administration Program

Students must successfully complete 36 credit hours in order to earn the Master of Healthcare Administration degree, which includes completion of the capstone project. How long does it take to complete the Master of Healthcare Administration program? The flexibility of our program allows you to complete your degree in as little as 18 months. If you are interested in tailoring your academic plan, please contact an enrollment counselor at healthcareadmin@une.edu.

We design the online classroom experience to suit the demanding schedule of full-time professionals. And recommend students log in to courses 3-5 times per week. Program assignments will vary by course and be shaped for best content delivery. These assignments include discussion boards, written papers, reading, exams, and collaborative group work.

For the best outcomes, our student support specialists recommend that you reserve 15-20 hours a week for coursework and studying.

 

Transfer Credits

Yes. Upon acceptance, Healthcare Administration students may apply to transfer up to three, 3-credit courses (maximum nine semester credits) into the program.

Yes, students who successfully complete any of the related graduate certifications (Graduate Certificate in Health Informatics, Graduate Certificate in Healthcare Data, Graduate Certificate in Emergency Management, Graduate Certificate in Health Data Quality, Graduate Certificate in Healthcare Management, and Graduate Certificate in Health, Law, and Compliance) can “stack” their 12 earned credits into UNE’s 100% online 36-credit Master of Healthcare Administration or the Master of Science in Health Informatics degree program. This can be done immediately or within several years after completion of the graduate certificate. Reach out to an enrollment counselor at healthcareadmin@une.edu or (866) 722-5096 for more details on this opportunity.

 

Student Support

Our motto is “A successful student is a supported student.” And we take that to heart. Upon entering the program, you will be assigned a dedicated Student Support Specialist to provide you with support and to answer any questions you may have.

Your Support Specialist is your on-the-ground advocate at the University – from questions on textbooks, to registration, to financial aid and more, they are there to help you make your academic journey successful. And of course, this dedicated support is provided in addition to the tremendous support you will receive from program staff, your academic advisor, course instructors and fellow classmates.

The Healthcare Administration program uses the Brightspace D2L Learning Management System.

 

Accreditation

Yes, the University of New England is regionally accredited, the most prestigious and widely-recognized type of accreditation, by the New England Commission on Higher Education (NECHE). To learn more, please see www.une.edu/accreditation/.

Additionally, The University of New England is a proud HIMSS Approved Education Partner. This designation demonstrates our commitment to delivering world-class, effective healthcare education and authorizes UNE to prepare students for advanced knowledge in healthcare, including earning the CAHIMS or CPHIMS certification.

 

Financial Information

Tuition information for the Master of Healthcare Administration can be found in the tuition costs section.

UNE is proud to be among ‘America’s Top Colleges’ according to Forbes and one of the ‘Best Colleges for your Money’ based on a 2019 MONEY magazine ranking. We value each graduate’s return on investment and ensure academic quality translates to higher earnings. More than 90% of our students receive some form of financial aid. Please visit our financial aid page for more information.