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With healthcare and its delivery becoming increasingly complex, you may be contemplating the possibility of becoming a healthcare manager. Good managers are needed to provide leadership in a variety of healthcare facilities and healthcare systems. Whether you end up supervising a small staff at a nursing clinic or overseeing a full-scale hospital or healthcare network, strong business and people management skills are essential.
What Type of Bachelor’s Degree?
Since most healthcare managers or administrators (the terms tend to be interchangeable) generally need at least a master’s level degree, a bachelor’s degree is essential. But what type of bachelor’s degree do you need? When you look the listing of undergraduate programs provided by the Association of University Programs in Health Administration, you will see that some undergraduate programs provide bachelor’s degrees with a concentration in healthcare administration. Those can definitely prove useful as you prepare for a job in this field, perhaps especially so if you think that you might stay in a middle-management position that doesn’t require you to go on for an advanced degree. However, other kinds of bachelor’s degrees, including those in nursing and business, could also be appropriate.
Variety of Master’s Level Programs
At the advanced degree level, the choices become more numerous and more nuanced. There are several types of master’s level degrees that could be useful in becoming a healthcare manager, including an MHA (Master of Health Administration), MBA (Master of Business Administration) or MPH (Master of Public Health).
Resource: Top 20 Affordable Online MBA Programs
Which kind of degree you choose may well depend both on where you’re coming from and where you’re hoping to go. For instance, if you already have a strong background in health administration, perhaps through a bachelor’s in that concentration, you might want to spend more time building your skills in business administration. If you know that your interests lie in community health or disease prevention, it would make good sense to move in the direction of an MPH degree.
Doctoral Level Degrees
Not everyone who becomes a healthcare manager will choose to pursue a doctorate, but there are a variety of doctorates that may help you advance in the field. These include the DBA (Doctor of Business Administration) DHA (Doctor of Health Administration) and DrPH (Doctor of Public Health) degrees. By the time you get to this stage in your education, you will likely have a strong sense of your career trajectory and may find choosing an area of specialization, and even a school with a particular faculty, an easier matter.
The field of healthcare management is an important and growing one. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics predicts very strong growth in the field through 2020. As the healthcare industry in the U.S. continues to grow and expand, especially as the population ages and as more people have access to healthcare, good managers will become ever more essential to ensuring that healthcare is delivered in an equitable, affordable and effective way. If those sound like good goals to you, this may be an excellent time to consider becoming a healthcare manager.
