Health Care Management

Launch your management career in a health care facility, insurance company, public health agency, or pharmaceutical firm

A group of 20 or so students is standing in front of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response

Our students visiting the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in Washington, D.C. Photo credit: Karen Edwards

Our health care management degree will tap into your interests in health policy and health care delivery issues from a business perspective. You will be exposed from day one to differing points of view about how health care is administered and how it might be improved. You will take core courses in health promotion including:

  • Critical Health Issues

  • Health Communication

  • Legal and Ethical Issues in Health Policy

  • Leadership and Health Promotion

You will sharpen your health care management skills with courses including:

  • Medical Terminology

  • Foundations of Public Health

  • Cyborgs, Clones, and Polic

  • Economics of Health Care

  • Health Planning & Administration

  • Introduction to Aging

In addition, you will complete either a general business or a pre-MBA minor in Ithaca College’s School of Business. With the former, you will be prepared for entry level positions in a wide range of health care environments. If you want to specialize in a particular area, such as assisted-living administration, you can take courses through our gerontology department. With the latter, you will be well-positioned to apply into a masters in business administration (M.B.A.) graduate program.

Hands-On Practice

All students are required to complement their classroom experience with a professional practicum. Our students typically complete these requirements during their junior or senior years as part of their coursework in a given semester. You may complete this on campus, although many of our students opt to complete this requirement with a variety of organizations in the Ithaca community. Six credits of fieldwork, internship, or supervised research (at most 3 credits can count from research) are required for graduation. You may break these credits up into distinct experiences - the majority of our students complete two, three-credit internships - one in each semester. It is also possible to complete fieldwork, internship, or research requirements during the summer months, however summer tuition does apply. All experiences must be approved in advance, we do not provide retroactive credit. 

An important component of this experience is reflection and evaluation. You will be asked to make connections in writing between your classroom learning and your observations while immersed in one of these experiences.

Our Graduates

A student in a blue dress is wearing a watch, smiling, and leaning against the railing looking at the camera.

Maddie Haftel ’18, currently a student at the Cornell University Sloan Program of Health Administration, was recently selected as a recipient of a 2019 David A. Winston Health Policy Scholarship. Photo credit: Maddie Haftel

Many of our graduates go on for further graduate study in business or management-related fields. Examples of the pathways of our recent graduates include:

Graduate School

  • Cornell University Sloan Program in Health Administration

  • Penn State

Job Titles

  • Business Analyst

  • Financial Analyst

  • Marketing and Outreach Coordinator

  • Physician Support Specialist

  • Program Analyst

  • Quality Program Coordinator

Questions?

HPPE Department Office
Mary Bennett, Administrative Assistant
G56 Hill Center
Ithaca College
953 Danby Road
Ithaca, NY 14850

(607) 274-3129