Master's programs focus on new generation of health care management professionals

Health care management is growing in popularity among business schools, according to a report in the New York Times. "Health care is the target career for 10 percent of students working on a master of business administration degree at Harvard Business School," according to the Times. Many other universities are also highlighting programs that meld health care and management. "The legislation passed last month is being studied to see where increased investment may bring new career opportunities … 'A big feature of the health care reform is the emphasis on electronic health records,' said Kevin Schulman, director of the health sector management program at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business in Durham, North Carolina." Health care delivery is another facet of the health care industry receiving attention. "The health care law deals mainly with insurance and not how care should be delivered … The addition of 30 million insured patients makes the need for improved efficiency even greater," said Bob Hansen, senior associate dean of the Tuck Business School at Dartmouth. In addition to a new master of health care delivery science program, Dartmouth is also planning a new Institute for the Science of Health Care Delivery (Lankarani, 4/26).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.