Program Focus

Mission

The mission of the Master of Health Administration program is to educate and develop early career healthcare leaders from diverse backgrounds who are ethically and globally aware and able to positively impact the wellness of the communities they serve.

The program focuses on preparing individuals to serve in public, private and federal healthcare organizations including hospitals, integrated delivery systems, medical groups, insurance providers, and various other healthcare settings.

Delivered in an evening, cohort-based format, the program offers the opportunity for both working and non-working students to complete their degree in less than two years.

Vision

To be the preeminent education program in health administration for developing leaders capable of transformative response to a continuously evolving healthcare environment, positively shaping and impacting the health of the communities they serve.

Values

The program draws upon the rich history of the University of the Incarnate Word. This relationship guides program direction and provides the value foundation on which the Master of Health Administration program was developed. The defining program values are drawn from the institution but manifest themselves in all aspects of the program.

• Integrity: The program seeks to develop students with strong moral character and an unwavering commitment to honesty in all actions.
• Excellence: Program excellence is measured by our student’s ability to make a significant and lasting contribution to the profession of healthcare management.
• Faith: The program is committed to educational excellence in a context of faith in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God.
• Service: The program curriculum includes a global perspective and an emphasis on social justice and community service.
• Innovation: The program is open to thoughtful innovation that serves ever more effectively the spiritual and material requirements of those in need.
• Truth: The faculty and students support one another in the search for and the communication of truth.
• Education: The program aims to educate men and women who will become concerned and enlightened citizens who seek to make a difference in the healthcare management profession.

The following 20 core curriculum domains and competencies serve as the foundation of the UIW Master of Health Administration program.

Domain 1: Knowledge of the Healthcare Environment

• Healthcare Environment: Ability to explain issues and advancements in the healthcare industry.
• Policy and Advocacy: Ability to effectively participate in discussions relating to health policy at the local, state, federal, and international levels.

Domain 2: Critical Thinking and Analysis

• Critical Thinking: The intellectual ability to skillfully conceptualize, apply, analyze, synthesize, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.
• Analytical Thinking: The ability to break down complex pieces of information into smaller and more understandable components or principles. It involves systematically dismantling data to decipher facts which can be used to build upon information or provide evidence-based conclusions.
• Innovative Thinking: Ability to apply complex concepts, develop creative solutions, or adapt previous solutions in new ways.
• Process and Quality Improvement: Ability to analyze and design, or improve, an organizational process, including incorporating the principles of patient safety, quality, and continuous improvement.
• Organizational Awareness and Design: The ability to analyze the formal and informal decision-making structures and power relationships in an organization or industry (e.g., stakeholders, suppliers). This includes the ability to identify who the real decision makers are and the individuals who can influence them, and to predict how new events will affect individuals and groups within the organization.
• Strategic Orientation: Ability to consider the business, demographic, ethno-cultural, political, and regulatory implications of decisions and develop strategies that continually improve the long-term success and viability of the organization.

Domain 3: Business and Management Knowledge

• Project Management: Ability to plan and execute a project involving significant resources, scope, and impact.
• Financial Skills: Ability to analyze and interpret financial and accounting information, prepare and manage budgets, and make sound long-term investment decisions.
• Human Resources Management: Ability to implement staff development and other management practices that represent contemporary best practices, comply with legal and regulatory requirements, optimize the performance of the work force, including performance assessments, alternative compensation and benefit methods, and the alignment of human resource practices and processes to meet the strategic goals of the organization.
• Information Technology Management: Ability to see the potential in and understand the use of administrative and clinical technology and decision-support tools in process and performance improvement.
• Legal and Regulatory Application and Assessment: Ability to understand and explain the regulatory and administrative environment in which the organization functions (e.g., CMS; JCI; NCQA; antitrust; Stark I and II). Includes the ability to understand and explain corporate compliance laws and regulations (e.g., physician recruitment, billing and coding practices, antitrust, conflict of interest, etc.).
• Performance Measurement: Ability to use statistical, economic, epidemiological, and financial methods and metrics to set goals and measure clinical as well as organizational performance; commitment to and employment of evidence-based techniques.

Domain 4: Political and Community Development

• Community Orientation: Ability to align one’s own and the organization’s priorities with the needs and values of the community, including its cultural and ethnocentric values, and to move health forward in line with population-based wellness needs.
• Social Responsibility, Professionalism and Ethics: Ability to demonstrate ethics, sound professional practices, social accountability, and community stewardship. Acting in a way that is consistent with one’s positive values and what one says is important.

Domain 5: Communication

• Communication Skills: Ability to use written and oral communications in formal and informal situations to convey meaning, build shared understanding, and productively move agendas forward.
• Interpersonal Understanding: Ability to understand other people as well as to accurately hear and understand the unspoken or partly expressed thoughts, feelings, and concerns of others. It measures increasing complexity and depth of understanding of others and includes cross-cultural sensitivity.

Domain 6: Leadership

• Collaboration: The ability to work cooperatively with others as part of a team or group, including demonstrating positive attitudes about the team, its members, and its ability to get its mission accomplished, and the ability to effectively resolve conflict.
• Team Leadership: The ability to see oneself as a leader of others. To provide guidance, instruction, direction, and leadership to a group of individuals for achieving key results, while holding team members accountable individually and as a group.

Graduate Internship

The MHA program has established a Graduate Internship experience focused on providing students an opportunity to work 15-20 hours a week in a healthcare organization concurrent with their didactic program. The internship experience is designed for students lacking relevant healthcare experience. Those participating in the internship program are paired with one of our industry partners representing many different areas of the healthcare industry including hospitals, health clinics, physician groups and community health centers.

Students begin the internship program in the fall semester of their second year and have an opportunity to gain experience over two full semesters. The internship program focuses on project-oriented activities that demonstrate the student’s ability to contribute to organizational outcomes. The internship program is required for those students without relevant healthcare experience and the ability to participate will be considered in the decision to accept a student into the program.

Professional and Leadership Development

All students participate in a series of curriculum-based activities that focus on professional and leadership development. Healthcare executive-led activities related to resume writing and interview skills help to develop the student’s professional core. Leadership skills are developed and enhanced through peer and faculty assessment and feedback of team-based leadership opportunities. Additionally, students have the opportunity to participate in interprofessional experiences that enhance their understanding of professional and leadership dynamics within the contemporary healthcare environment.

Capstone Experience

The culminating academic event of the program is a client-based capstone project. Working in teams, and for a health industry client, students address a significant management problem, question or issue in real-time. Capstone project work is evaluated by both the professor and the client.

Hear from MHA Director Dr. Chris Nesser about the value of the MHA program at the University of the Incarnate Word.

Jeffery A. Cowart

• President
• SVP Strategies, LLC – San Antonio and Washington, D.C.

Geoffrey W. Crabtree

• Senior Vice President, CRE-Asset and Transaction Management
• Methodist Healthcare System/HCA – San Antonio

Mary E. Garr, COL (Ret)

• Chief Executive Officer
• Family Service Association – San Antonio

Francisco “Paco” Gonzaba

• Executive Director of Business Operations Executive
• Gonzaba Medical Group – San Antonio

Alvin Loewenberg

• Former Chief Executive Officer
• Morningside Ministries

Carlos E. Moreno, M.D., MBA

• Vice President and Chief of Clinical Affairs
• CommuniCare Health Centers – San Antonio

Ike W. Pauli Jr., M.D.

• President and CEO
• Northeast Pediatrics Association, PA – San Antonio

Karla Strawn

• Chief of Patient Administration Services
• South Texas Veterans Health Care System – San Antonio