Curriculum and the faculty who teach it define an online Master of Business Administration (MBA) program’s identity and forge its impact. Offering a dual-focus MBA with robust coursework in both general business and healthcare management led by world-class instructors, the Online MBA in Healthcare Management at Weatherhead School of Management of Case Western Reserve University excels in both areas.
However, the value of an MBA degree program extends beyond its curriculum. The MBA experience is not just about what you learn and who teaches it, but also about whom you study alongside and what you learn from them. Because so much of the MBA experience involves class discussions, group projects, student study groups and networking events, the people you meet in your MBA program contribute substantially to what you derive from it.
This is as true for a part-time, online degree program like Case Western Reserve’s as for a traditional, full-time on-campus program. CWRU’s alliances with the Cleveland Health-Tech Corridor and the Cleveland Innovation District facilitate online students’ engagement with regional healthcare systems and technology innovators. These are the business leaders involved in groundbreaking projects in and out of the healthcare industry.
You’ll also spend a lot of time with your classmates and instructors throughout the program, working together, learning from each other and getting to know each other well. As a result, their impact on your education will likely be as great as the impact of the 48 credit-hour curriculum.
Your online Healthcare MBA program peers
As an online MBA student at Weatherhead, you’ll network with an impressive group of fellow business graduate students who:
- Represent a wide gamut of occupations and experience levels, from recent undergraduates to seasoned clinicians, lawyers and health services managers with years of work experience.
- Seek better pay, greater career stability, more responsibility and influence, and a better life for future generations.
- Lead busy lives even before enrolling in an online MBA program and appreciate a program like Case Western Reserve’s that allows them to earn a healthcare management MBA while continuing to work.
- Value the speed with which the program can be completed—you can earn your MBA in under three years—while still benefiting from substantial hands-on experiential learning experiences.
- Relish the unique combination of expertise in general business and healthcare management that the program imparts to prospective healthcare leaders and healthcare executives.
- Appreciate CWRU’s excellent regional and national reputation.
Your classmates will be drawn from:
- Current healthcare professionals in non-clinical roles who need additional knowledge, skills and credentials to advance to leadership positions. This group typically includes healthcare managers, healthcare administrators, policy analysts, medical device manufacturers and insurance professionals. They are go-getters hoping to advance to senior positions and perhaps the executive level in their healthcare organizations. They want more responsibility and increased capabilities to make a difference in healthcare administration and delivery, public health and healthcare policy.
- Healthcare clinicians—including MDs, dentists, physician assistants and nurse practitioners—hoping to parlay their clinical experience into management roles. Some may be looking to improve their acumen in leading and growing their clinical practices; they want to develop their business and management proficiency to the same level of their clinical skills.
- Managers, administrators and other professionals from outside healthcare who understand that a growing healthcare industry means many opportunities to advance and succeed. They often come from business or nonprofit management backgrounds, so they already understand fundamental business principles. They are looking to bolster their current skill set while adding proficiency in healthcare delivery, administration and management.
How will you benefit from your classmates’ contributions?
Your online classmates at Weatherhead bring a wealth and diversity of knowledge and experience to the classroom, which they share in discussions, group projects and study groups. You’ll study healthcare management best practices alongside medical practitioners, healthcare administrators, computer scientists, data analysts and business professionals, each adding their unique perspective to your problem-solving exercises. You’ll explore everything from health informatics and information system management to healthcare finance and operations management. You’ll see problems and solutions approached from angles you’ve never considered before, and you’ll add your unique perspective to the mix.
As the program progresses, you and your classmates will build a professional network that will benefit you throughout your career. Many of your classmates already work and have valuable connections to healthcare facilities and other healthcare leadership opportunities. Others will join their ranks soon. All represent chances to learn about and gain access to new opportunities in healthcare delivery and related operations.
The Weatherhead online healthcare MBA faculty
An MBA program is only as good as its faculty. An optimal program features content experts with plenty of hands-on business experience to inform and support their lessons. They also love to teach and know how best to impart knowledge and skills so that they stick with learners.
The Weatherhead faculty meets all these criteria. Its instructors combine academic mastery with lifelong business experience to deliver incisive lessons rich in real-world illustrations, and they are committed to teaching and to their students’ success. They include:
Scott Fine
Scott Fine (MBA, Stanford University) teaches banking and finance. His resume includes stints as an investment banker, strategic consultant and public company CFO, enabling him to analyze problems from the perspective of an advisor, manager and executive. Fine has also served on numerous boards of directors. His areas of expertise include the creation of value and the link between a company’s financial and corporate strategies. Fine has received numerous teaching and mentoring awards at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Pooyan Kazemian
Pooyan Kazemian (PhD, University of Michigan) teaches operations. Formerly a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, Kazemian has completed extensive research cited by NPR, The New York Times, Science Codex and many other major media sources. His work focuses on the ways machine learning, artificial intelligence and data-driven optimization can improve healthcare delivery and management, with a particular focus on the testing and diagnosis of chronic and infectious diseases.
Thomas King
Thomas King (DM, Case Western Reserve University) teaches accounting. His professional career includes 30 years innovating at Progressive Insurance (he managed the business unit that sold the first online auto insurance policy). King pioneered Progressive’s practice of releasing monthly, rather than quarterly, financial statements. His academic work focuses on disclosure policy and earnings guidance, both essential accounting functions for publicly held companies. He is also the author of a history of accounting (More Than a Numbers Game).
Ellen Van Oosten
Ellen Van Oosten (PhD, Case Western Reserve University) holds a PhD in organizational behavior alongside an MBA. She is a master coach who has worked with managers and executives from Fifth Third Bank, Scottish Enterprises, the Barnes Group and many others to develop decision-making and leadership skills, emotional intelligence and career planning skills. Her research focuses on executive development through coaching, development of emotional intelligence, leadership development and organizational development. She is also a trained electrical engineer with years of professional experience in that field. She teaches in Case Western Reserve’s MBA, executive MBA, Master of Engineering and Management, law, and undergraduate programs.
Getting the most out of your healthcare MBA
You’re considering an MBA in Healthcare Management because you hope to optimize your opportunities in the healthcare industry. It’s a wise option: A healthcare MBA outfits you with management skills applicable to a broad range of business scenarios, fine-tuned to the specialized knowledge and demands of healthcare management. By pursuing online learning, you’ll be able to continue working while you study. You’ll also be ideally situated to apply what you learn immediately to real-life situations in your workplace.
To extract the maximum benefit from your healthcare MBA, you want a thorough lineup of core courses taught by a world-class faculty. You want a program with deep connections to the healthcare management industry and classmates drawn from across roles and functions within that industry. The Online MBA in Healthcare Management at Weatherhead School of Management of Case Western Reserve University offers all this and more, from a school ranked among the nation’s top 20 part-time MBA programs by U.S. News & World Report.
Cleveland is a major American healthcare hub, and CWRU is plugged into its healthcare delivery centers and incubators. The student body includes many who work in regional healthcare. They bring a wealth of healthcare management and experience with them to the classroom, which they share in discussions and group projects. They also constitute part of your expanding professional network, as do faculty, who also are deeply immersed in the regional healthcare industry.
An Online MBA in Healthcare Management from Case Western Reserve prepares you for tomorrow’s healthcare industry while connecting you with the future manager and executives who will oversee it. Contact admissions to learn more about program requirements and start dates, or simply start your application today.