Program Overview

Doctor of Health Administration Program

The Doctor of Health Administration program is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the healthcare industry and the skills necessary to succeed as leaders in healthcare administration.

Course Descriptions

• DHA800: Organizational Behavior This course assists students in developing a framework for thinking about the organizational world of healthcare and its complexity. The specific emphasis is on health services organizations and management research, with an emphasis on organizational theory and organizational behavior.
• DHA801: Financial Management The focus of this course is to improve the executive's ability to use financial information for strategic decision making. This is accomplished through a review of the concepts and methods for financial analysis for healthcare organizations.
• DHA802: Healthcare Leadership This class serves as an introduction to leadership, challenging students to explore their understanding of the importance of leadership in health administration. Students utilize knowledge and skills acquired through experience, academic literature, research, and discussion.
• DHA805: Qualitative Methods This course provides students with an introduction to qualitative research methodologies used in health services research. The course enables students to understand the key elements of a research proposal and study.
• DHA807: Managing Healthcare Information This course provides a senior-level view of the issues surrounding the adoption and use of information technology in healthcare. Students gain insight into national initiatives and discuss their ramifications at the state and local levels.
• DHA808: Health Politics & Advocacy This course provides students with a detailed understanding of the structure and functioning of the health policy process, particularly at the national level. Macro and micro-level models of the health policymaking process are described.
• DHA809: Change Management & Negotiation This course focuses on the leadership and management of change in an organizational setting. The course seeks to help students understand the dynamic relationship between external demands for change and internal objectives to meet stakeholder demand.
• DHA811: Current Topics in Healthcare The course focuses on current topics of interest and importance to the delivery and administration of healthcare. Activities vary but include critical reading of selected applied health services research publications.
• DHA812: Evidence-based Decision Making This course is the rigorous evaluation of the impact of different options available for treating a given medical condition for a particular set of patients. Topics include a review of research designs and statistics methods for comparative effectiveness research.
• DHA814: Study Execution This is an advanced seminar on principles and techniques for designing and implementing healthcare and managerial research studies. Students learn to critically assess the literature and develop a dissertation proposal concept summary.
• DHA816: Leading a Dynamic Workforce This course provides students with the skills and resources needed to lead and support an effective and dynamic workforce. Students examine how their experiences and knowledge contribute to leadership competency.
• DHA817: Strategy & Operations This course focuses on current trends in healthcare strategy and innovations in clinical operations. Students gain concrete and soft skills to motivate and inspire others to act.
• DHA818: On-Campus Workshop This course provides students with the opportunity to engage with healthcare administration and policy leaders during the on-campus session. Using a workshop format, the session provides students with professional development training.
• DHA850: Population Health Management This course focuses on the development of skills and knowledge necessary for the DHA to enter into new and innovative leadership roles in addressing the health of populations. Population Health Management integrates facets of the healthcare delivery system.
• DHA865: National Health Policy This course builds on the knowledge of the general health policymaking process. It is designed to provide students with an advanced understanding of the structure and functioning of the health policy process, particularly at the national level.
• DHA867: Quantitative Methods for Research This course is designed to give students the skills to use data sets and conduct quantitative analysis to address research questions. The course uses actual public-use secondary data sets to provide students with experience in data management.
• DHA872: Leadership III This class serves as the cumulative leadership course in the DHA program. Students apply the knowledge and skills acquired through academic literature, research, and lectures as they participate in online and class discussions and exercises.
• DHA878: Advanced Information Systems This course is a comprehensive study of the role and impact of IT in health services organizations. Specific emphasis is on the role IT plays from clinical and managerial perspectives.
• DHA880: DHA Independent Study This course provides the student with the opportunity to engage in a mentored, individualized, in-depth study/experience in a focused area of healthcare administration.
• DHA990: Doctoral Project Upon completion of the Doctoral Project, credit will be applied to complete the degree requirements. Specific guidelines for the Project and Committee composition are outlined in the DHA Policy Manual.

Credits

Each course has a specific number of credits assigned, ranging from 1 to 4 credits, with the Doctoral Project having a range of 0.5 to 18 credits.