Master of Healthcare Administration
Core Courses (9 courses/27 credits)
HCA-501
Introduction to Healthcare
This course will explore the historical development, current state and possible future trends of health care financing and delivery in the U.S. Course components include a general overview of the size and scope of the health care system; issues related to the underlying need for health care, different modalities for financing and reimbursement and will conclude with evaluation and policy issues.
HCA-509
Human Resources Management
This course will assist students in understanding the effective use of human resources to achieve organizational goals within the constraints imposed by ethical considerations and legal obligations. The processes used to determine human resource requirements, recruitment, selection, development, utilization and accommodation of human resources in contemporary organizations will be explored. Students will apply case analyses methods to assess the issues, stakeholders and supported options to resolve pertinent human resource management situations.
HCA-519
Healthcare Finance
This course provides an overview of the healthcare environment and introduces financial concepts through financial statements reviews and analysis. Discussions address the development and use of revenues, identification of operating expenses, strategies to contain costs, and the financial interaction between healthcare providers and third party payers. Class presentations and a term paper provide opportunities for students to research and discuss current healthcare financial topics.
HCA-522
Introduction to Healthcare Analytics
This course provides students with foundational knowledge of analytics, covering key components of the data analysis process, including strategies for effectively capturing and communicating information, and the pitfalls in doing so.
HCA-525
Ethics for Health Professionals
Students explore the current and recurring ethical issues facing health professionals in today's healthcare environment. Topics include the right to refuse treatment, the right to die, physician-assisted death, organ donation, resource allocation, and issues related to healthcare reimbursement and administration, such as cost containment and quality assurance. Other topics include informed consent, confidentiality, autonomy, nutrition and hydration, professional codes, the Human Genome Project and cloning. Traditional theories of ethics as well as decision making models are also examined.
HCA-528
Health Policy
Students focus on three major areas that contribute to the establishment of national health policies: health planning, health research, and health services. They examine the methodology for policy planning, goal setting, allocation of resources, plan implementation, evaluation, and regulation. Health policy as it relates to health research involves discussion of major illnesses and diseases, environmental factors, new technology and health research, and the social, political, and economic factors influencing policy development.
HCA-533
Health Law
Students examine the law relating to healthcare administration. Course topics include: the physician-patient relationship, professional liability, credentialing, medical records and disclosure of information, HIPAA regulations, consent to treatment, hospital liability, and the institution-physician relationship. Recent legislation regarding issues in healthcare administration is also discussed.
HCA-543
Public Health Administration
This course provides healthcare leaders with a broad overview of public health issues, the meaning of health promotion and disease prevention with a consideration for health status and risk factors. This course balances a view of the historical development of public health and moves to current challenges such as dealing with a global pandemic, including COVID-19. The material is current, relevant and critical for anyone who wants to understand how to improve the health of a community.
HCA-547
Application of Healthcare Management Theory
This capstone course is taken at the conclusion of the student's graduate healthcare studies. The course will review and reinforce the core competencies the student has acquired during their course of study. Through case studies and actual healthcare management situations students will have the opportunity to apply the techniques and skills acquired during their previous course work. Pre-requisite: Completion of HCA-501, HCA-509, HCA-519, HCA-522, HCA-525, HCA-528, HCA-533, and HCA-543 is required or approval from the graduate program director.
Possible Electives (3 courses/9 credits)
HCA-505
Healthcare Marketing
Students are introduced to basic marketing principles and practices related to the health services industry. They examine consumer needs, target market concepts, strategies for attaining goals, current market practices, cost benefit analysis, ethical considerations, and marketing resources. The development of positive relationships within an organization is explored as a marketing strategy, including the role in marketing played by employees, physicians, patients, and the community. Class presentations and a term paper provide opportunities for students to research and discuss current healthcare marketing topics.
Guiding patients through their illnesses so that they can make their own decisions seems to be a more humane and empathetic approach. But it requires an advanced level of communication among patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers.
This communication is the focus of Narrative Medicine (NM). NM applies the skills students of literature acquire (such as close reading, interpretation, and active reading/listening) to the medical context. It calls for factoring the patients’ stories into their healthcare plans. Throughout this course, you will explore Narrative Medicine’s premise that using narrative can enhance the quality of medical care.
HCA-510
Essential Team Building for Healthcare Leaders
This course is designed to provide current and future healthcare leaders with both the theory and practice of building effective teams that are running on all cylinders. Using common examples that exist in healthcare along with the experience of students, we will consider the role of the leader, alignment, communication, training and feedback in the development of effective teams. We will also examine the conflicts that arise within teams and how best to address them. We will explore how to measure whether your team is functioning at a high level.
HCA-515
Building Agreement and Relationships
Healthcare is a dynamic workplace where professionals from different educational programs and experiences must work together to achieve outstanding results in patient care, clinical outcomes, quality measurement, all while under significant financial pressures. Inevitably, differences will arise that need to be addressed effectively while maintaining interdependent relationships. Students will follow the "Getting to Yes" and "Difficult Conversations" principles, in application to healthcare specific situations.
HCA-520
Transformational Leadership Practices
This course is the fourth course in the Healthcare Leadership Certificate Program and is intended to pull together the learnings of the prior three courses using a student-selected leadership project involving change. At each stage of the project, students will incorporate their personal leadership approach, the culture of their group, and their comfort with finding common ground. This seven-week hybrid course will follow John P. Kotter's eight step "Leading Change" process. Students will explore each step of the change process, applying related concepts to their project and to other healthcare specific situations.
HCA-524
Enhancing Dynamic Leadership Skills
Professionals across most fields and disciplines are challenged to lead, work with, and intervene in a variety of unusual situations. Therefore, leaders from all sectors are needed who can develop the leadership skills to facilitate interdependent, cooperative action. This course will provide the opportunity for course participants to develop their unique leadership identity and personal leadership approach. This course will provide basic introductory leadership material.
HCA-540
Healthcare and the Older Citizen
Students examine the political, social, economic, and healthcare issues that pertain to older people and their families. They look at housing, health and social programs, long term care, reimbursement, and public policy issues. Past, present, and future trends that affect the aging population are also explored.
These questions, in turn, sink their roots into even deeper questions. What is human nature and when do we violate it? How do moral and spiritual values relate to biological and physical values? How do religious worldviews, and in particular Christianity, understand illness and health, life and death? The goal of this course is to enable students to reflect on these and similar questions in an interdisciplinary manner.
HCA-570
Internship and Seminar in Healthcare Administration
The internship is an individual work experience or project in an organization (normally off-campus) under the supervision of a practicing professional and structured by a Salve Regina University faculty member. The internship is a supervised learning experience for academic credit typically consisting of a minimum of 120 hours of on-the-job experience occurring within a semester. Note: Required for 5th year students and those without healthcare experience.
HCA-581
Special Topics in Healthcare Administration
Special topics courses with healthcare administration and management content are offered on a periodic basis. Topics vary by semester and are designed to address emerging issues and trends in health care.
If you want to use data to learn how the world works, you must have this statistical knowledge in order to trust your data and your results. There’s just no way around it. Understanding statistical principles can help you assess the quality and the validity of conclusions. Statistical knowledge can even help reduce your vulnerability to manipulative conclusions from projects that have an agenda.
This course will address a broad spectrum of fundamental statistics concepts. The topics include exploratory data analysis, basic probability distributions, sampling distributions, interval estimations, hypothesis testing, and significance testing (P-Values) with single, paired and two-sample problems.
HCA-591
Independent Study
A focused study on a subject outside the graduate catalog. An independent study provides opportunity for original and in-depth research on a specific topic or regional issue of the candidate's interest and professional focus. A student selects a topic of research and prepares a research paper to be submitted to the professor. The quality of the research should be appropriate to graduate level research.
