Accelerated Healthcare Administration Programs for Future Leaders

Key Infor­ma­tion:

• Boston Uni­ver­si­ty and Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia have top accel­er­at­ed health­care admin­is­tra­tion pro­grams.
• Accel­er­at­ed health­care admin­is­tra­tion pro­grams allow pro­fes­sion­als to obtain their degrees in one to two years, sig­nif­i­cant­ly faster than tra­di­tion­al programs. 
• These pro­grams offer an inten­sive cur­ricu­lum focus­ing on lead­er­ship, finan­cial man­age­ment, health law, and strate­gic plan­ning.
• Despite being often online, these pro­grams pro­vide ample net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. Career-mind­ed peers and the use of tech­nol­o­gy facil­i­tate con­nec­tions, men­tor­ships, and pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ships that are cru­cial for career growth.

As some­one who has been work­ing in the hos­pi­tal envi­ron­ment for a while, you may think that work has become rather dull. When you are in an entry-lev­el posi­tion, the chal­lenge may no longer be there, caus­ing you to want a high­er posi­tion. That said, fol­low­ing a tra­di­tion­al pro­gram can be time-con­sum­ing, and not every­one has 3 to 4 years to focus on an MHA program.

This is where accel­er­at­ed health­care pro­grams come in. Offer­ing a more con­densed cur­ricu­lum, you can get your degree in a short­er time. This should allow you to get that pro­mo­tion you’ve been eye­ing for a while, tak­ing full advan­tage of the demand for health­care admin­is­tra­tors. To that effect, this arti­cle will talk more about accel­er­at­ed pro­grams for aspir­ing lead­ers and how they can ben­e­fit your career.

Relat­ed:

• Will a Health­care Admin­is­tra­tion Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Help My Career?
• Best Schools for Health­care Administration
• Fastest Online Health­care Admin­is­tra­tion Bachelor’s Degree Programs
• Most Afford­able Online Health­care Admin­is­tra­tion Bachelor’s Degree Programs

What Are Accelerated Healthcare Administration Programs?

Accel­er­at­ed health­care admin­is­tra­tion cours­es are edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams that offer stu­dents a faster route toward their degree. Com­pared to the aver­age bachelor’s and master’s pro­gram, which can last around three to four years, this ver­sion can be com­plet­ed in one to two years. The high­er the program’s inten­si­ty, the faster you can get the degree in your hands.

These fast-track health­care degrees have a high­er cur­ricu­lum inten­si­ty despite stu­dents going over vir­tu­al­ly the same sub­jects. How­ev­er, instead of tak­ing more breaks or going at it slow­ly, stu­dents will take their class­es more fre­quent­ly. Stu­dents will be required to pro­vide a quick grasp of the sub­ject, but com­mit­ment can help speed a career-mind­ed per­son forward.

Benefits of Accelerated Programs for Aspiring Leaders

There are numer­ous advan­tages to get­ting your health­care lead­er­ship train­ing in an accel­er­at­ed fash­ion. How­ev­er, the most notable ones are the following:

1. Faster Workforce Entry

One of the great­est advan­tages of accel­er­at­ed health­care admin­is­tra­tion pro­grams is that you can enter the work­force quick­ly. If your goal is to boost your health­care man­age­ment career, this can pro­vide you with your cre­den­tials much faster, lead­ing to a pro­mo­tion and, most like­ly, a salary increase. 

2. Intensive Learning Style

Even though accel­er­at­ed pro­grams fol­low a quick-paced for­mat, this does not mean you will get a less­er edu­ca­tion. In fact, the cur­ricu­lum is pret­ty much the same as the aver­age Master’s in Health­care Admin­is­tra­tion (MHA), but it’s taught at a faster pace. The edu­ca­tion is focused and engag­ing, empha­siz­ing the prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence rather than the the­o­ry part. This, com­bined with a short­er time­frame between class­es, can help stu­dents gain knowl­edge much quicker.

3. Networking Opportunities

As many of these are online health­care admin­is­tra­tion pro­grams, some might try to argue that the pos­si­bil­i­ties for net­work­ing are lim­it­ed. The truth is that this is pre­cise­ly the oppo­site. As the peo­ple join­ing these pro­grams are career-mind­ed, every­one will like­ly look to con­nect with their peers. Since we also live in a tech­no­log­i­cal era with mul­ti­ple plat­forms and dis­cus­sion medi­ums, it’s easy to cre­ate asso­ci­a­tions and find men­tors, should you put your mind to it.

Key Skills Developed in Accelerated Programs

Each pro­gram is dif­fer­ent, depend­ing on the insti­tu­tion that you go for, which makes it a good idea to do some research first. Most uni­ver­si­ties should offer an overview of what will be stud­ied – at least a reli­able, accred­it­ed one will. That said, some of the most impor­tant skills you should devel­op from these class­es include the following:

1. Leadership and Management

Lead­er­ship and man­age­ment are crit­i­cal abil­i­ties that you will devel­op as you learn how to man­age a team effec­tive­ly. The health­care admin­is­tra­tion cur­ricu­lum will help you build your com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, man­age orga­ni­za­tion­al changes, and resolve con­flict in dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions. This can be pret­ty con­ve­nient if you man­age a team of nurs­es and want to main­tain a pro­duc­tive and pos­i­tive work environment.

2. Financial Management and Budgeting

As part of your health­care man­age­ment edu­ca­tion, you will also learn to punch in the num­bers. The course should teach you how to per­form prop­er bud­get­ing, con­trol costs, and ana­lyze finan­cial state­ments. Since you’ll allo­cate the resources and ensure a steady rev­enue stream, this pro­gram will empha­size basic math skills. This way, you can learn how to main­tain finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty in your team.

3. Health Law and Ethics

You’ll be at the top of every­thing there, so your health­care exec­u­tive edu­ca­tion must also brush up on your ethics and health law knowl­edge. You will learn more about the laws nec­es­sary for reg­u­la­to­ry com­pli­ance, such as the Afford­able Care Act or HIIPA. You will also be taught how to advo­cate for a patient’s rights or make eth­i­cal deci­sions for their ben­e­fit. You will work on your risk man­age­ment skills and learn to mit­i­gate them ethically.

4. Strategic Planning and Decision-Making

You’re the leader there, mean­ing that all the big plans and deci­sions will be your respon­si­bil­i­ty. As a result, accel­er­at­ed pro­grams for health­care admin­is­tra­tion cer­ti­fi­ca­tions will teach you how to con­duct strate­gic analy­sis. You should learn how to per­form a SWOT analy­sis, devel­op long-term strate­gic plans, and cre­ate inno­v­a­tive strate­gies for the con­tin­u­ous­ly chang­ing health­care environment.

Top Accelerated Programs to Consider

With more and more career-mind­ed peo­ple plan­ning to get their degree fast-track, plen­ty of insti­tu­tions offer accel­er­at­ed MHA pro­grams. Below are the top health­care admin­is­tra­tion schools fea­tur­ing Mas­ter of Health Admin­is­tra­tion accel­er­at­ed degrees.

· Boston University (BU)

The Mas­ter of Pub­lic Health (MPH) accel­er­at­ed pro­gram at Boston Uni­ver­si­ty is quite pop­u­lar among peo­ple look­ing for a hybrid degree. Depend­ing on the inten­si­ty you opt for, you can get your degree in 16 to 18 months, focus­ing on expe­ri­en­tial learn­ing. You can also go for dual degrees if you want more oppor­tu­ni­ties when it comes to health­care admin­is­tra­tion jobs.

· University of Southern California (USC)

If you have only one year to get your degree, then the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia can set you up for suc­cess. There are plen­ty of spe­cial­iza­tions, from health­care lead­er­ship to health infor­mat­ics, and it offers var­i­ous net­work­ing and intern­ship opportunities.

· University of North Carolina (UNC)

Do you want to give your­self more time to learn your trade? In that case, the 2‑year accel­er­at­ed pro­gram at UNC could be pret­ty use­ful. You have two years to get your degree and can choose between a ful­ly online and a hybrid program.

Admission Requirements and Application Tips

Apply­ing to an accel­er­at­ed pro­gram is rel­a­tive­ly straight­for­ward, pro­vid­ed you gath­er the prop­er doc­u­men­ta­tion. Once you have all the paper­work, you should sub­mit it and wait for con­fir­ma­tion. Most insti­tu­tions ask for the following: 

• Bachelor’s degree from a rel­e­vant domain
• Work expe­ri­ence in the health­care system
• Min­i­mum 2.5–3.0 GPA
• Stan­dard­ized test scores
• Pre­req­ui­site cours­es (e.g., eco­nom­ics or statistics)

The high­er your scores are, the bet­ter your chances of accep­tance. To strength­en your health­care admin­is­tra­tion appli­ca­tion, you could write a com­pelling per­son­al state­ment and good let­ters of rec­om­men­da­tion. Make sure you clear­ly state your goals and expe­ri­ence to show that you are a good fit.

Career Outcomes and Opportunities

Nowa­days, the aver­age health­care admin­is­tra­tion salaries are around $100,046, accord­ing to Glass­door, which means the pro­mo­tion will be high­ly ben­e­fi­cial for you. You have numer­ous job options with this degree, from health­care admin­is­tra­tor to clin­i­cal man­ag­er and health ser­vices man­ag­er. With con­tin­u­ous edu­ca­tion, the job mar­ket can open up count­less oppor­tu­ni­ties, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing the clin­i­cal staff shortage.

The Bottom Line

Accel­er­at­ed health­care admin­is­tra­tion pro­grams can help you reach your goals faster than tra­di­tion­al cours­es. For exam­ple, if you seek a pro­mo­tion, this is the option you should go for. Research the avail­able pro­grams, cre­ate a thor­ough plan and a strong appli­ca­tion file, and based on that, choose the uni­ver­si­ty that meets your needs the most!

Sources:

Forbes