Contact Info
MHA Program
Dr. Brenda Helen Sheingold
Director, Master's in Health System Management
Associate Professor
Department of Health Administration and Policy
Also, check out our FAQs for prospective students. If you still have unanswered questions, please email us at hap@gmu.edu.
Ranked at #32 by U.S. News and World Report, this master's program prepares future executives to assume leadership positions in health care organizations. We prepare health care professionals with strategic, business, analytic, and decision-making skills needed to successfully navigate the evolving health care industry.
The MHA program is available in either an on-campus or online format. Both formats use the same curriculum. Online format courses are taken one at a time. Each online format course lasts 8 weeks.
Professional Competencies
The MHA in health systems management curriculum is driven by a set of professional competencies, organized into five domain clusters. At the completion of the program, students are expected to achieve targeted proficiency in each of the competencies associated with the following domains.
- Knowledge of the Healthcare System and Healthcare Management
- Communications and Interpersonal Effectiveness
- Critical Thinking, Analysis and Problem Solving
- Management and Leadership
- Professionalism and Ethics
Capstone Practicum
The Capstone Practicum is a vital part of the curriculum, completed as a culminating experience at the end of the program. Students function as an integral member of a health system, hospital, consulting firm, health care agency, or other organizational entity and complete a non-thesis project assigned by their preceptor. Analysis of the problem provides the context in which theoretical concepts and management skills are applied to the resolution of an important organizational issue or initiative.
The master of health administration (MHA), health systems management program is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME). The Council on Higher Education Accreditation granted formal recognition to CAHME as the only organization to accredit master's level health care management programs in the United States and Canada.
This 45-credit hour program prepares students to work as leaders and executive-level managers in evolving health systems, or as consultants and managers of health-related organizations. The curriculum was developed in response to the demand for advanced health management preparation for a variety of health care and allied health professionals to be employed in both the public and private sectors of health care:
- hospitals
- health systems
- consulting and regulatory entities
- medical practice groups
- ambulatory clinics
- managed care organizations
- local, state, and federal government agencies