After spending the initial years of their career at the clinical level, many professionals in the healthcare industry will find themselves called upon to make more “business-related” decisions. This is the byproduct of increasing pressures on healthcare systems to tighten up their budgets, comply with new federal regulations, and provide a higher standard of care for an ever-growing population of patients.
Whether you want to fast-track your career path by increasing your business expertise or find yourself drawn more to the administrative and management side of healthcare, an MBA in healthcare management from George Washington University can prepare you to answer the unique demands of the business of healthcare.
Here are three ways that a healthcare MBA can give you the edge over traditional MBA programs:
1. Tackling the Unique Problems of the Healthcare Industry
The healthcare industry faces all the same challenges of any other major industry, but with some significant differentiating factors. Healthcare systems must run efficiently but must also answer to increasing governmental regulations and demands. A healthcare MBA takes the concepts of organizational structure, risk management, financing, and workforce efficiency out of the abstract and teaches them within the real-world context of the healthcare system.
2. Placing a Priority on Compassion
The vast majority of businesses are occupied with one central goal: being profitable. Accordingly, graduate studies in a conventional MBA program are structured around this goal. At the end of the day, the top priority is making more money.
However, the healthcare industry pulls another goal into play, one that is just as important (if not more so) as profitability. That goal is one that every clinician knows intimately: helping patients achieve better health. Every decision made by a given healthcare system’s administration must take into account not only the system’s bottom line but also the outcomes for patients.
For students of other MBA programs, it can be a difficult transition from a pure profitability mindset to a perspective that places compassion at the fore. But for those who complete a healthcare MBA, the patient perspective is present in every aspect of the business.
3. Lets You Transition from Clinical Practice
Most MBA programs require candidates to have a prior business degree or, at the very least, several years of management experience. But for healthcare MBA candidates, your experience on the floor as a clinician is just as important, if not more so, than any prior management education. Healthcare MBA programs recognize that clinical researchers, physician’s assistants and other healthcare workers bring a vital perspective to their higher education.
Perhaps more importantly, employers within the healthcare industry agree. Throughout the healthcare industry, employers are actively seeking to fill management positions with candidates who have an advanced degree in clinical practice.
A healthcare MBA puts you in line for many upper-level management opportunities within the healthcare industry by giving you the skills you need to make smart management decisions while maintaining the proper patient-centered perspective.
Begin your Health Services Manager Career with an Online Master’s Degree
The George Washington Healthcare MBA degree features a convenient online format that is ideal for working professionals. Whether you are a nurse or an accountant, the balanced curriculum of the GW HCMBA track, with coursework spanning topics in finance, management, and modern healthcare, will prepare you for a career as a medical and health services manager.
Sources:
Geteducated.com, "MHA vs MBA vs MPH: What’s the Difference?"