Our new M.H.A. curriculum launching in August 2012 is a direct result of our continued effort to strive for excellence in education at Des Moines University. The new curriculum is a result of over two years of extensive research and design to enhance the curriculum and utilize best practices in online graduate education.

View the MHA new curriculum outline (pdf)

Major changes to note in the new curriculum include the addition of our Executive Residency workshops.  Students will attend three on-campus workshops during their degree, each focused on addressing core course content while further developing key elements of health care leadership. Workshops will be conducted on Des Moines University’s campus twice each year, and scheduled for 5 days each.  Credit will be earned for each on-campus Executive Residency Workshop, totalling 13 semesters upon completion of all three residencies. The first Residency will be held September 12-16, 2012.

Block I

• Orientation (no credit)
• Executive Residency I:
  • Professional Development Seminar I: Blending Theory with Practice (2 credits)
  • Health Care Human Relations Management (3 credits)
• Overview of the US Health System (3 credits)
• Health Care Finance I (3 credits)
• Health Care Statistics & Research (3 credits)
• Organizational Behavior & Leadership Theory  (3 credits)
• Legal and Ethics I: Clinical Decision Making (2 credits)

Block II

• Legal and Ethics II:  The Business of Health Care (2 credits)
• Organization Development(3 credits)
• Health Care Finance II (3 credits)
• Health Information Management (3 credits)
• Population Health & Managerial Epidemiology (2 credits)
• Executive Residency II:
  • Professional Development Seminar I: Blending Theory with Practice (1 credit)
  • Strategy Formulation & Implementation (2 credits)

Block III

• Health Care Economics & Policy (3 credits)
• Health Care Operations (2 credits)
• Strategic Marketing & Communications (3 credits)
• Executive Residency III:
  • Professional Development Seminar III: Blending Theory with Practice (1 credit)
  • Quality Tools – Application Lab (1 credits)
  • Field Based Learning Practicum (3 credits)

Total semester hours for M.H.A. degree: 48

Course sequence

Core courses are grouped into blocks. It is required that you progress through courses in block order.  Your faculty advisor (assigned upon acceptance) can assist you in determining an order of coursework appropriate for you.

Block I - Course descriptions

MHA 620:  Orientation

The M.H.A. program orientation is an online experience. The orientation includes an overview of: M.H.A. curricula; computer expectations, library resources, professional behavior, support services, outcomes assessment, activities and effective oral and written communication skills. This experience provides you with an introduction to the program(s) and the M.H.A. student handbook. Students complete a test verifying their successful completion of the online orientation. This course is required and must be completed before taking any courses in the M.H.A. program.

MHA 801-803:  Professional Development Seminars I-III: Blending Theory with Practice

The executive residencies are designed to integrate theory with practice and you work with your learning community of peers and those learners are earlier and later stages of program.  The residencies take place over 5 consecutive days on the DMU campus and share the time with a one of the core courses.  The typical schedule includes a core course in the morning and an afternoon of seminars, workshops, and one on one meetings with your advisor and other faculty as you progress through the degree program.

In the later part of the degree program, more advanced students demonstrate their leadership and communication competencies by co presenting some of the content to newer, less experience students.

MHA 619:  Health Care Human Relations Management

This course provides an overview of the nature, organization, and function of human resources in health care organizations.  Emphasis is placed on applications to real-world problems, rather than viewing human resources as an isolated function.

MHA 621:  Overview of US Health Care System

This course is a comprehensive analysis of the health care delivery system including the interface with the public health system. Components studied include: continuum of health services; members of the health care team and their roles; service delivery settings; third party oversight or regulatory agencies; nonprofit organizations; health planning; and, health care services financing and reimbursement in public and private systems. Formal, informal, financial, and political relationships between and among these components are discussed. Additional topics include: Regional patterns of health care delivery; trends, problems and potential solutions related to health services delivery and health care reform; consideration of differences between U.S. system and the systems in other regions of the world.

MHA 625:  Health Care Financial Management I

This course provides a basic understanding of health services financial management with emphasis on the not-for-profit entity. We will begin with elementary accounting concepts and then focus on discounted cash flow analysis, risk, financial statements, capital investments, debt and equity financing, capital budgeting, and health care reimbursement models. The course blends accounting and finance concepts to enhance the health care manager’s decision-making skills using accounting and finance theories, principles, concepts and techniques most important to managers in the health care industry.

MHA 650:  Health Care Statistics & Research

This is an introductory course that exposes the student to the use of statistical techniques for healthcare data analysis. Topics covered include research design, data acquisition, types of data, univariate and bivariate data summarization techniques, tabular and graphical data presentation, inferential techniques using different theoretical distributions and introduction to the use of multivariate statistical techniques. Students will learn to apply statistical techniques for decision making and/or research data analysis.

MHA 626:  Organizational Behavior & Leadership Theory

This course will provide a broad introduction to the theory, structure, and function of organizations, and the behavior of working in people in them. The primary purpose of the course will be to equip students with an understanding of organizational theory and related practical techniques for managing effectively in complex health care environments.

MHA 627:  Legal & Ethics I: Clinical Decision Making

Health law and bioethics are broad, dynamic and interrelated fields.  This course will address major legal, ethical, and policy aspects of controversies in clinical health care delivery.  Students will gain a working knowledge about how law and ethics can be applied to real-world health care issues.

Block II - Course descriptions

MHA 628:  Legal & Ethics II:  The Business of Health Care

This course provides an overview of legal and ethical issues facing the health care industry.  Students will gain a working knowledge about the influence that laws, policies and ethics have on the regulation, structure, and financing of the American health care system.  Select topics include:  Scope of practice, licensure and regulation of health care providers; common forms and structures of health care enterprises; the function of licensure, accreditation and inspection in quality assurance for health facilities.

MHA 629:  Organizational Development

This course will incorporate a survey of contemporary organizational theory focusing on concepts relevant to health service organizations and systems.  Emphasizing organizational environment, goals, strategy, structure and processes.  The course provides a comprehensive overview of the key factors affecting an organization, and exposes the student to theories that suggest effective organizational responses to such influences and changes.

MHA 630:  Health Care Financial Management II

This course builds on the foundational learning from MHA 625 and goes into greater depth on discounted cash flow analysis, risk, financial performance evaluation, capital investments, debt  and equity financing, and capital budgeting. It also examines the role of private equity as a source of capital and studies the use of merger and acquisition as a growth strategy for health care enterprises.

MHA 631:  Health Information Management

This course prepares students practicing in the health care industry to: effectively identify, use and manage health information technologies.  Specific topics include:  an introduction to technologies and information systems supporting health care organizations; technology security; regulatory and compliance issues; system acquisition, implementation and support; health information exchange; alignment of technology initiatives; strategic planning; and assessing value in health information technology.

MHA 633:  Population Health & Managerial Epidemiology

Management epidemiology is the application of principles and tools of epidemiology to the decision making process. The course will challenge the students to combine traditional public health models with contemporary theories of management. The course will demonstrate how health care leaders can incorporate the practice of epidemiology into complex management functions.

MHA 742:  Strategy Formulation & Implementation

Having an effective strategy is widely seen as essential for organizational success. However, in practice, defining exactly what constitutes a “strategy” can prove surprisingly difficult. Indeed, the academic literature on strategy creation and implementation might be characterized as complex, confusing, and often directly contradictory.  This course attempts to clarify and cut through these contradictions. We will examine the nature of strategy, what it is (and isn’t) and how one actually comes to develop an effective business strategy. You will be exposed to 10 leading “schools” or ways of thinking about strategy, and we will review the evidence for and against each methodology.  You will also learn the distinction between strategic analysis and the act of strategy formulation.  In the later part of the course, we will turn our attention to the equally important task of implementation. We will see that quite often, creating strategy has little to do with notions of traditional “strategic planning or strategy models.”

Block III - Course descriptions

MHA 644:  Health Care Economics & Policy

An introduction to the theoretical foundations of health care economics and its application to the health care industry. Understand how economic trends can impact a wide range of health care issues such as markets, payment systems, and policy.

MHA 646:  Strategic Marketing & Communications

This course is designed to build innovative, customer-centered, thinking within the future leaders of the health care industry. This is accomplished with an introduction to the role of strategic decision-making through the core principles of marketing (the4’Ps).  Students will also experience basic data base management, conducting an internal and external environmental analysis, primary and secondary data gathering and interpretation and the creation of a marketing plan to meet an unsatisfied market need or build volume for a health care product or service.  Finally, the role of corporate communication will be interwoven throughout the course as it supports marketing success.

MHA 648:  Health Care Operations

This course is about operations management and the strategic implementation of programs, techniques and tools for reducing cost and improving quality in health organizations.  It covers the basics of operations management and explains how operation and process improvement relates to healthcare trends.   In addition, this course introduces the theories and tools related to organizational and process improvement.

MHA 748: Quality Tools – Application Lab

This course will provide hands on learning opportunities for students to discover and practice quality improvement theories and tools through practical application. Lessons will incorporate a series of the MHA curriculum including personal experiences, discovering how to improve organizational systems and processes.   At the outcome of the class, the student will be able to apply basic quality and continuous improvement tools in a work or personal setting.

MHA 749: Field Based Learning Practicum

This course serves a culminating experience in which students are expected to apply knowledge gained from their graduate experience.  The course is designed to provide a final experience in which students demonstrate mastery of content and allow an opportunity for closure and connection between courses.  The purpose of this field based experience course is to facilitate the integration and synthesis of content through critical thinking; it is also a turning point for the student from education to professional practice.  Students have one term to complete the experience project.  Students who feel their project will take longer than one term to complete will submit a request for an Incomplete according to MHA program policies.  The course is designed to be a single student experience, however, team projects may be proposed and will be approved on a case-by-case basis.                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Students may choose from the following optional tracts within the field based experience:  Long Term Care (requires additional 400 hour LTC internship) Research (requires sponsoring faculty approval).