The business of healthcare is as complex and rapidly changing as any industry. It is imperative that healthcare professionals gain business knowledge and skills needed to integrate best business practices with clinical practice to meet today’s challenges.

Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science aims to give healthcare professionals the skills to administer and manage their departments, offices, and institutions having learned the leadership and management competencies to do so through the RFUMS’s Master of Science in Healthcare Administration and Management and Certificate programs.

The Healthcare Administration and Management program is similar in design to a Master of Business Administration, with courses focused on finance, marketing and leadership. But unlike MBA programs, the courses are designed to address the specific needs and challenges unique to those working in the field of healthcare.

Diane Bridges, MSN, RN, CCM, Program Director and Assistant Professor, said the program is designed to offer the knowledge and skills in healthcare administration and management to anyone looking to oversee a healthcare department, practice, or hospital or to those who develop healthcare policy or are healthcare educators.

“The program is designed to give current or future healthcare professionals business and leaderships skills in order to be successful in their career goals,” Bridges said. “It is open to working professionals, students in other professions, and to individuals interested in entering healthcare through administration and management.”

The Master of Science in Healthcare Administration and Management program is designed with an interprofessional curriculum.This online program is interactive and asynchronous which allows students to discuss topics with their professors and their classmates while giving them the flexibility to fit coursework into busy personal, professional or academic schedules. Students can enroll in the program full or part-time.

An alternative to the Masters degree is the Certificate in Healthcare Administration and Management which is geared toward those seeking to advance their healthcare leadership and business knowledge on more select topics.

Bridges said about 90 students are currently enrolled in the programs, with most graduates having obtained the masters as a second degree augmenting their professional career degrees from allopathic or podiatric medicine, physical therapy, nutrition, or as a physician’s assistant to name a few. One recent healthcare administration and management graduate received managementlevel job offers from a nursing home, a private consulting firm, a home healthcare agency and a private health care practice.

Eilon Gabel enrolled in the RFUMS Healthcare Administration and Management program last year shortly after graduating with an undergraduate degree from the University of Southern California, and completed the program in a year.

Gabel, now a medical student at the Keck School of Medicine at USC, said he initially saw the Healthcare Management program as a résumé builder as he applied to medical school and worked in a consulting service office within a California hospital.

But soon, he said, he found himself applying the lessons learned in a leadership class in the RFUMS program on the job at the hospital. He created a leadership flow system at the consulting office, which doctors there told him vastly improved the office’s efficiency.

Although initially somewhat skeptical of the Internet-based program, he said it was challenging and demanded more student participation than traditional lecture-based programs. “I was actually very impressed,” he said.

Gabel said he now believes the lessons he learned in the program will help him establish a successful medical career. “It is a very high-yield program,” he said. “These are things you are not going to learn in medical school, and yet it is things you are going to need to know to succeed.”