What Is a Healthcare Administration Degree? | Courses, Specializations & Careers

Most people think that careers within the healthcare field need to be patient-serving roles, like doctors, surgeons, or nurses. However, though these are popular careers in healthcare settings, medical facilities also require people with leadership skills and competencies related to business administration and information technology. These professionals coordinate the operations of healthcare facilities, manage medical records, and serve as liaisons between healthcare providers and patients.

A bachelor's degree in healthcare administration combines health information management with business operations to fulfill leadership roles in healthcare organizations. These degree programs are also offered as graduate degrees and can be completed through on-campus and online programs.

What Is a Healthcare Administration Degree?

Healthcare administration degrees come in multiple formats, but some key concepts are taught in varying depths, regardless of degree type or level. Students can find many affordable online healthcare administration degrees at various levels.

Degree Levels

Most healthcare administration programs offer a bachelor's degree, but some students elect to earn a Master of Health Administration (MHA). On-campus and online bachelor degrees are considered equal as both take around 120 credit hours, or about four years on a full-time schedule. If you pursue a double major or additional specializations, you might need to take additional credit hours.

Core Focus Areas

Healthcare administration is a ''jack of all trades'' kind of career path. The skills required to do the role are varied, and the coursework of an average healthcare administration degree reflects this. In addition to general education requirements, aspiring healthcare administrators will need to study subjects like:

• Management: Healthcare administrators serve an important role within the healthcare industry. Students will learn how to coordinate teams of highly specialized healthcare providers to achieve larger organizational goals. These professionals often work with multiple team leads instead of leading their own team.
• Policy: Healthcare organizations often have to set their own policies that must align with state and federal policies. Healthcare administrators are not only responsible for policy compliance, but they also set and maintain internal policies.
• Finance: Budgeting is one of the biggest competencies of a healthcare administrator. These professionals work to coordinate payroll, purchasing of supplies and equipment, and more.
• HR: The HR role of a healthcare administrator is an extension of their finance and management responsibilities. They work to assign payroll and benefits packages while providing discipline and conflict resolution services.

Core Courses in a Healthcare Administration Degree

Regardless of degree level, there are several core courses that healthcare administration majors will take. These courses range from entry-level to in-depth study, especially in master's degree programs.

• Introduction to Healthcare Systems: Healthcare systems are the networks of providers, actions, and organizations involved in healthcare. This coursework studies the different organizations (e.g., hospitals, doctor's offices, and pharmacies), and how they make up the larger healthcare services networks.
• Healthcare Law and Ethics: Healthcare is a highly regulated industry. Healthcare administrators are often the first line of legal consultation for healthcare providers, and they need to study what makes actions legal and ethical to protect their patients and coworkers.
• Healthcare Financial Management: Some programs identify the four Cs of Healthcare financial management: cost, cash, capital, and control. Healthcare administrators study how each contributes to the larger financial streams of a healthcare organization or hospital network.
• Human Resource Management: Human resource management coursework studies the people that make a business run. In a healthcare administration capacity, this includes monitoring benefits, payroll, and making sure that all providers stay up to date on licenses and continuing education requirements.
• Healthcare Operations Management: Operations management is the most business-focused part of healthcare administration. This course covers the organization-level functions of an administrator, including inventory management, process analysis, and quality control.
• Health Informatics: Computer science and information technology have become essential to nearly all industries, and healthcare is no different. Health informatics uses computers and data science to monitor patient records to identify opportunities for growth and improvement in healthcare services.
• Strategic Planning and Leadership: Strategic planning and leadership is the process of developing long-term strategies for an organization. In addition to making plans, healthcare administrators are responsible for designing creative solutions when plans need to be changed or replaced.

Specializations Within a Healthcare Administration Degree

Healthcare administrators wear many hats in their organizations, but larger organizations provide specialization roles as parts of larger healthcare administration teams. To prepare for these roles, students often select concentrations and specializations while still working toward their college degree.

• Health Informatics: Health informatics as a concentration increases the focus on computer and data science and how they apply to healthcare management. These students work heavily in data-based decision-making for teams and the organizations as a whole.
• Long-Term Care Administration: Long-term care administration is the process of monitoring care for aging patients or patients with chronic conditions. This discipline includes understanding the ethics and laws around long-term care, including maintaining licenses and meeting regulations for facilities and practices.
• Healthcare Policy and Management: Healthcare policies and management aim to balance state, federal, and internal healthcare policies. State and federal policies are outside of the control of healthcare administrators, but they still need to make sure that all internal policies align with these external regulations.
• Public Health Administration: Not all health administrators work within health organizations, like hospitals; some work in community-facing roles and coordinate government health initiatives. These administrators work outside of healthcare organizations, but they often work closely with them.
• Hospital Management: Hospitals are diverse healthcare ecosystems consisting of multiple highly specialized teams, ranging from laboratory scientists to surgeons. Students who select these specializations study the skills to coordinate these different groups to achieve larger organizational goals and provide individual segments of care.

Careers With a Healthcare Administration Degree

Graduates with healthcare administration degrees have many career options in hospitals, healthcare organizations, and government agencies. Some employers might prefer different levels of degrees, but most of the paths have entry-level positions that can be earned with a bachelor's degree.

• Hospital Administrator: Hospital administrators are responsible for managing the daily operations of a hospital. These professionals serve as the bridge between the business and healthcare services of the hospital.
• Healthcare Consultant: Healthcare consultants sometimes travel nationally or work in a single region with various healthcare organizations. These consultants provide advice on policy, processes, and other operational adjacent elements.
• Nursing Home Administrator: Nursing homes are like a blend of a hospital and a hotel. These long-term healthcare providers need special management, especially compared to a hospital or doctor's office. Nursing home administrators also need to be aware of different regulations and guidelines.
• Health Services Manager: Health service managers are similar to hospital administrators, but they often work in other healthcare settings, like doctor's offices. This role doesn't usually work in patient care, but work experience in healthcare is often an advantage for candidates seeking jobs.
• Health Informatics Specialist: Health informatics specialists work with data to analyze past performance and create long-term plans. This includes reviewing individual patient data and looking at larger trends in the organization and the industry.
• Public Health Administrator: Public health administrators work with healthcare providers to develop public policies and healthcare initiatives. This can include making PSAs and other informative materials or developing health initiatives to prevent illness or other medical issues at a community level.
• Policy Analyst: Policy analysts look at current policies and suggest which to keep, which to change, and which new policies are needed. Healthcare policies specifically need analysis from people with training in health sciences and training in administrative processes.

Find the Right Degree Program

Finding the right degree program for your healthcare administration career goals includes looking at what levels of degrees are offered, if there are online courses, and if the program is accredited. Using the database of articles on Learn.org is a great way to see which schools offer healthcare administration degree programs.