Medical Professionals taking a class

Master of Healthcare Administration and Leadership

Become A Health Care Leader

The Master of Healthcare Administration and Leadership (MHAL) program at the WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, in partnership with the WSU Carson College of Business, trains current and future health care leaders. Designed for individuals seeking to advance in their health care careers and professionals already in health care leadership positions, the stackable certificate program provides training in key leadership skills and business competencies necessary to thrive in the rapidly evolving field of health care.

The application for Fall 2024 is now open and accepting international students.
Deadline is July 15, 2024
Classes start August 19, 2024

Program at a Glance

  • Develop administrative, ethical, and professional skills for middle and upper-management health care leadership positions.
  • Learn to handle complex new developments in economics, finance, management, policy, and technology from one of the top online business schools in the nation, WSU Carson College of Business.
  • Earn your degree online while meeting the demands of your career.

Learn From Leaders in Health Care

Learn from experts who are active leaders in the health care sector themselves—WSU faculty who run complex hospital systems, lead academic institutions and drive research activities within health care systems.

The MHAL Program Prepares You to Be Able To:

  • Apply a range of individual and team leadership theories and skills that can be utilized to benefit others and their organizations.
  • Effectively establish, operate and maintain functional and successful teams with shared goals and expectations using clear communication.
  • Assess, analyze and reflect on individual emotional intelligence, personal growth and development plans.
  • Understand systems of change and apply frameworks for leading systems of change using analytic strategies and tools to assess effective and ineffective approaches in health care.
  • Understand, apply, and analyze the principles of value-based care and patient safety and demonstrate the important underpinnings of quality improvement.
  • Demonstrate using LEAN production concepts to decrease waste and inefficiency in clinical settings.
  • Create an applicable Continuous Quality Improvement project.
  • Develop interventions and apply tools to increase health equity and reduce causal factors.
  • Apply basic financial, accounting, marketing, business strategies, data analysis, operations management, and productivity in managing the business of health care.

Program Of Study

38 SEMESTER CREDITS 

The MHAL degree is a collaboration between the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine and the WSU Carson College of Business. Uniquely designed to be flexible to individual needs and interests, students may pursue individual certificates in any order or apply to complete the MHAL degree. At any point in their educational journey, students may choose to apply for the MHAL degree and, upon acceptance, use their certificate coursework to satisfy the requirements of the degree program. 

Learn Online

Offered through WSU’s Global Campus, most course content and activities occur asynchronously in the online course space. A weekly synchronous component is available to further build community, emotional intelligence, and team-building skills.

Foundations of Leadership Certificate

Evaluate personal strengths and those of others through self-assessment and the analysis of team development leadership styles. Learn best practices in team cohesion, building trust, psychological safety, and skillful debate.

  • MED HAL 501: Introduction to Leadership and Self-Assessment (3 Credits)
  • MED HAL 502: Teamwork and Team Building (3 Credits)
  • MED HAL 503: Emotional Intelligence and the Health Care Leader (3 Credits)
  • MED HAL 504: Leading Through Transformation Change (3 Credits)

Essentials of Health Care Certificate

Learn the principles and values of decreasing waste and increasing efficiency, the lifecycle and challenges in policy and health legislation, and the forms of effective advocacy and structural bias in health care access.

  • MED HAL 505: Value-Based Leadership: Incorporating the Triple Aim (3 Credits)
  • MED HAL 506: Health Care Policy and Politics (3 Credits)
  • MED HAL 507: Health Equity, Advocacy and Their Impact on Health Care (3 Credits)
  • MED HAL 508: US Health Systems: From Micro to Macro (3 Credits)

Managing the Business of Health Care Certificate

Raise your business acumen through the engagement of principles and applications that sustain optimal performance, foundational topics of marketing, cash-flow analysis, risk and return ratios, the cost of capital, models to improve productivity, persuasive communication, and the application of ethical frameworks.

  • BA 502: Foundations in Operations Management (2 Credits)
  • BA 501: Foundations in Marketing (2 Credits)
  • BA 504: Foundations in Finance (2 Credits)
  • MGMT 593: Managerial Leadership and Productivity (3 Credits)
  • ACCTG 550: Introduction to Financial and Managerial Accounting (3 Credits)

Students who do not have an undergraduate degree in business or cannot otherwise demonstrate by their transcript the completion of an introductory statistics course, microeconomics and macroeconomics will also be required to take:

  • BA 500: Data Analysis for Managers (2 credits) Course Prerequisite: Admission to the MBA program. Descriptive statistics, probability, common, discrete, and continuous distribution functions, sampling and estimation, and statistical inference.
  • ECONS 555: Managerial Economics for Decision Making (3 credits) Optimal economic decision-making for business in a global environment.

Students may be eligible to waive these two courses pending approval by Carson College of Business.

MHAL Capstone

Integrate and synthesize the information learned over the three certificates to address health care challenges. Create a project that analyzes a health care challenge in your field, considering all aspects of the issue, and present potential solutions acknowledging risks, obstacles, and opportunities for success.

Admission Requirements

  • Bachelor’s degree from an accredited U.S. institution
  • Students who have received their degree abroad, must have their transcripts evaluated. Please review International Student Policy for more information.
  • Completed application
  • Resume indicating at least two years of professional work experience in health care or other skilled or professional settings.
  • 3.0 cumulative GPA for master’s degree/2.75 cumulative GPA for the Leadership and Essentials of Healthcare certificates.
  • Written statement addressing how you believe this program will prepare you to create solutions in the health care community. If you do not have any experience in a healthcare setting, please discuss what interests you about this program.
  • Two letters of recommendation, three encouraged for the master’s degree track

Tuition and Fees

$950/Credit hour

Apply for MHAL Certificate

The application for Fall 2024 is now open and accepting international students.
Deadline is July 15, 2024
Classes start August 19, 2024

All applicants will be notified of their admission status by email, and accepted applicants will be sent information for program registration and course enrollment at that time.

Our Team