General Program (Competency-Based): BS in Healthcare Management
Master the business side of healthcare and move your career forward in a thriving, fast-growing field.
Master the business side of healthcare and move your career forward in a thriving, fast-growing field.
The BS in Healthcare Management competency-based degree completion option1 is ideal for busy working professionals like you. Your progress is measured by the mastery or demonstration of skills, abilities, and knowledge in a particular area of expertise (AoE).
Each competency has been carefully designed by expert faculty with input from employers, with your education and future employment in mind.
The General Program is offered is two other degree completion options:
Students may be eligible to transfer up to 135 credits.
This represents the minimum credits for program completion. Time to completion will vary by student, depending on individual progress and credits transferred, if applicable. For a personalized estimate of your time to completion, call an enrollment advisor at 844-768-0515.
Students take a top-down approach to understanding introductory accounting documents and procedures by exploring a business’s financial statements, including the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement in this course. Students explore the practical uses for information that can be gleaned from these statements, individually and as a whole, through a detailed examination of the properties and characteristics of each statement. Students engage in application assignments and discussions on a variety of topics, such as regulations that should be followed when preparing financial statements as promulgated by generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Students examine the U.S. use of GAAP in comparison to the use of International Financial Reporting Standards.
Initiatives to prevent illness and promote healthy lifestyles are often more effective and cost efficient than efforts to intervene or treat disease. This is why health promotion is an increasingly popular trend in the field of healthcare. In this course, you’ll formulate a definition of health and discuss the many influences that shape our individual and collective perceptions of health. Explore the health-wellness continuum, including a number of factors, such as behavioral, demographic, psychological, and social forces. Examine evidence-based methodologies for interventions to promote health and enhance wellness and evaluate health information found online to determine credibility and accuracy. You’ll also reflect on ways to shape your future career in health and to promote positive change.
Effective advocacy through politics, policy, and professional associations is one method of improving healthcare delivery in the U.S. However, effective advocacy depends on individuals who fully understand current issues, systems, existing policies, and related contexts. In this course, you’ll engage in a systems-level analysis of the implications of healthcare policy on issues of access, equity, affordability, and social justice in healthcare delivery. Examine legislative, regulatory, and financial processes relevant to the organization and provision of healthcare services. You’ll also assess the impact of these processes on quality and safety in the practice environment and disparities in the healthcare system.
Many factors influence the health behavior and wellness of individuals and populations. Understanding these factors helps healthcare professionals reduce health disparities and address healthcare access issues for vulnerable populations. In this course, you’ll examine the cultural and behavioral factors and issues that influence the management and delivery of healthcare services. Develop a framework for assessing the effect of culture and behavior in a variety of settings and situations. Identify health disparities attributable to diverse cultural and behavioral factors and discuss their implications for healthcare policy. You will also engage in application-based writing assignments to further examine the goals and objectives of addressing health disparities as well as obstacles for confronting vulnerable populations.
Health professionals often use information technology to make important clinical and managerial decisions related to services and processes in healthcare. In this course, you’ll examine information technology that supports the collection, storage, retrieval, and communication of data; information systems safeguards; ethical and legal issues; and information management to promote patient safety and quality of care. Explore information literacy, basic hardware and software concepts, and fundamental software applications, including spreadsheets and healthcare databases. Applying course concepts, you will plan for the development of a database, explain your chosen database design, and describe potential challenges in implementing your system. You will also have the opportunity to review and analyze current events about health topics addressed in the course.
The nature of health services—such as personal evaluations, clinical research, invasive surgeries, and end-of-life care—facilitates a host of ethical and legal considerations of which professionals must be aware. In this course, you’ll examine the legal and ethical issues that are fundamental to the practice of healthcare and the conduct of health-related research. Explore a historical overview of events and milestones that have shaped the contemporary regulatory landscape. Investigate and assess issues of privacy and confidentiality, informed consent, licensing, and malpractice, among others. You’ll consider ethical, decision-making models for assuring the quality, safety, and appropriateness of healthcare and services. You will also apply ethical principles and legal considerations to real-world scenarios.
This course introduces you to a patient-centered, interdisciplinary model for healthcare delivery in which individual practitioners collaborate as members of a team. The benefits of such an approach for patients and providers with emphasis on improved outcomes are examined. Potential obstacles and institutional barriers such as delineation of responsibilities, reimbursement, and licensing are also considered.
This course examines major issues in acute and long-term healthcare policy and practice from the perspective of the patient and the provider. Topics include access, affordability, insurance, quality, safety, and technology. Special consideration is given to the social, institutional, economic, and regulatory contexts in which services are delivered.
In this course, you’ll examine the history of third-party reimbursement, the culture of patient expectations for healthcare, and Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement funding and management. Explore how healthcare policy, insurance, and reimbursement impact quality and population health.
This course presents management concepts and theories designed to influence and improve the performance of healthcare organizations. The external and internal environments of organizations are identified, as well as key management functions, roles, and responsibilities. Essential aspects of healthcare management are addressed.
This course focuses on the theories of behavior of healthcare organizations at the macro (organization-wide) level and micro (individual and team performance) level. Factors that influence an organization’s behavior and performance—including the role of culture, group processes, and interactions—are considered.
This course focuses on major quality and safety issues within healthcare organizations. You’ll examine methods of assessing quality and techniques for improving quality. You will also consider opportunities for preventing adverse and never events with attention given to the 5 Million Lives Campaign. Current requirements for reporting indicators of quality and pay-for-performance initiatives to reward quality are addressed.
This course presents key concepts related to strategic planning, including the relationship of the plan to the organization’s mission, values, and vision. You will be introduced to assessment techniques and methodologies for evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis) for a healthcare organization. You’ll also explore the relationship between strategic planning, marketing, and organizational performance.
Healthcare organizations are able to provide quality care to patients only when their workforce is productive, satisfied, organized, and well trained. Organizations rely on the human resource (HR) department to provide employees with support, while focusing on the needs and goals of the organization. In this course, you’ll explore and discuss the role of HR in healthcare organizations as related to the recruitment, retention, and management of the healthcare workforce. Examine workforce development models, employee benefits, and compensation strategies. Explore methods used by HR professionals to develop goals and expectations for evaluating employee performance and promoting effective employee relations. You will also investigate HR problem-solving strategies, such as conflict resolution, collective bargaining, and arbitration methods. Through application-based activities, you’ll analyze effective development of position descriptions, assess practices of hiring based on organizational fit, gain real-world insight on strategies of successful organizations, and develop plans for attaining long-term professional goals.
This course examines the basic components required for the conduct of health-related research. It also provides you with the analytic tools needed to understand and assess research methods described in the scientific literature. Basic research methods are described, including surveys, observational studies, experimental and quasi-experimental design, use of primary and secondary data, and statistical techniques for analyzing and interpreting data.
This course engages you in the foundations for financial management in the delivery of healthcare services. Learn about the purpose and methods of financial reporting, such as financial statements, balance sheets, and operational and capital budgets. Mechanisms for healthcare reimbursement, including Medicare, Medicaid, and other payer programs are presented, in addition to financial risk, variances, and insurance principles. You’ll also explore the financial, political, and economic aspects of universal healthcare.
This course engages you in the foundations for economic evaluation from a population health approach. Gain an understanding of healthcare as a market and compare the supply and demand principles in healthcare versus a typical business. Develop insight into how economic losses or gains impact health care policy changes, sectors of the population, physician staffing, and stability. Explore the epidemiological, social, global, and future economic impact of health care.
The capstone provides an opportunity for you to synthesize the knowledge and skills gained from the program of study through a written paper or project.
1Walden University’s competency-based options are priced as an all-you-can learn model, where students subscribe to three-month learning periods instead of paying for courses or credit hours. Walden offers monthly starts, the first Monday of every month, for the competency-based option.
