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 their roles and responsibilities;

• Identify trends and issues related to system participants

• Discuss, describe, and analyze the impact of politics and economics on the health care delivery system and on healthcare organizations;

• 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;

• Be able to articulate their own beliefs regarding major ethical issues that are affecting health care.

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;

• Describe how membership to the medical/professional staff is granted;

• Describe what entity has responsibility for medical/professional staff 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;

• Be able to 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 and interpreting published/statistical 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, committee management, and coordinating,

  • motivating and persuading, ,

  • resolving conflict/mediating, and

  • supervising staff, including 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;

• Understand the impact of third-party payers (particularly managed care organizations) on revenues.