Department of Health and Community Services

What does it mean to be a health services administration major? What should a health services administration graduate know, be able to do, and believe? The program's learning objectives, which are based on national standards, are intended to answer these questions.

1. The graduate in Health Services Administration will have knowledge, skills, and beliefs related to the health care delivery system and will:

Identify participants in the system and describe their roles, responsibilities, and trends and issues related to them;

Discuss, describe, and analyze the impact of politics and economics on the health care delivery system and on healthcare organizations; and be able to participate in influencing political decisions;

Be able to apply laws and regulations that impact healthcare organizations (e.g., employment, antitrust, patient consent, confidentiality);

Discuss the major ethical issues that are affecting health care and be able to articulate their own beliefs.

2. The graduate in Health Services Administration will have knowledge, skills, and beliefs related to healthcare organizations and will:

Describe the governance structure in health care organizations, including the role of the governing board, administrators, and committees;

Describe how the medical/professional staff is governed, how membership to the staff is granted, and what entity has responsibility for disciplinary action

Describe the roles, responsibilities, and functions of various services within healthcare organizations, including risk management, financial services, materials management, and facility management

Be able to measure the quality of services and apply general approaches to quality management problems

Be able to utilize the jargon and language of health care organizations

3. The graduate in Health Services Administration will have knowledge, skills, and beliefs related to management processes, including program planning, implementation, and evaluation; management of human resources; and financial management; and will:

Be able to develop program plans, including defining problems in appropriate terms, setting goals and objectives, using statistical data, interpreting published data, researching issues, developing--and deciding from among--alternatives, and evaluating results and impacts;

Be able to manage day-to-day organizational activities, including handling the informal, on-going flow of activities, managing time effectively, developing priorities, making considered decisions, and reviewing/evaluating performances and outcomes;

Be able to manage people, including team building, networking, coordinating, committee management, motivating, resolving conflict/mediating, presenting, persuading, supervising staff, and conducting employee performance evaluations;

Be able to manage program/organizational finances, including applying basic principles of budgeting, capital financing, and case-mix budgeting, using the budget as an internal control device, and applying various financial ratios; be able to identify sources of operating revenue, and understand the impact of third-party payers (particularly managed care organizations) on revenues.

4. The graduate in Health Services Administration will have competent communication skills, including written and spoken communication, use of electronic media and formal presentations/business reports.

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