Today's healthcare industry is complex and fast-changing, and navigating the economic, regulatory, and ethical landscape can be challenging. When you earn your Graduate Certificate in Business Management for Healthcare, you'll build core knowledge of critical healthcare issues and develop your ability to make strategic business decisions for improving patient care.

Graduate Certificate in Business Management for Healthcare Program Overview

  • Program Structure: 4–5 courses
  • Class Schedule: Monday–Thursday evenings at 5:20 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
  • Time to Complete: 1 to 3 years

Unique Features

Top 50

Among national universities (U.S. News & World Report)

12 or 15

credits may be applied toward a future MBA

  • Learn the essentials of business and management—including frameworks for decision-making and critical principles of organizational design—with the goal of improving patient access and experiences
  • Specialize your studies with elective topics that are relevant to your goals, such as health informatics or supply chain for healthcare
  • Build your confidence and experience through applied project work and case studies—key components of Northeastern's practice-oriented approach to learning
  • Access expert career guidance from an experienced counselor at Northeastern's office of Employer Engagement and Career Design
  • Build the foundation for a future master's degree from Northeastern—you may be able to apply your earned certificate credits toward an eligible master's program

'Just In Time' Learning'

'Just In Time' Learning' Opens in Modal

'Stackable' Credentials

'Stackable' Credentials Opens in Modal

Admissions

  • GMAT Required? No.
  • Where do I apply? Apply using this application.
  • Interview required? Upon request.

There are three entry terms each year in January, May, and September.

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Deadlines & Decisions

Find the deadlines and decision dates you need to know. Submit your application by the earliest date possible for priority consideration.

Please visit the Northeastern Student Financial Services page. Click the dropdown under “Graduate Programs” and you'll find the cost per credit listed next to “D'Amore-McKim School of Business Programs.”

At Northeastern, we value and celebrate diversity in all its forms and strive to foster an inclusive culture built on respect that affirms inter-group relations and builds community, which is vital to learning and discovery.

Clubs and Organizations

Northeastern has many opportunities for you to be engaged with our community. Examples include the following:

Graduate Students of Color Collective

The purpose of the GSCC is to build community for graduate students of color at Northeastern University by promoting education, professionalism, and civic duty. The GSCC fosters student, staff, and faculty relationships to establish a campus home for higher education at Northeastern. Through civic engagement with surrounding communities, the GSCC recognizes the continued struggles of marginalized populations, and the need for those who have succeeded to give back.

Grad Q

Grad Q is a student organization for LGBTQ+ graduate students at Northeastern. Grad Q is focused on building community, social events, advocacy, and mentoring undergraduate students.

Campus Resources

We have a number of cultural centers on campus to support our campus community by providing programs, lectures, and events for students with a range of affiliations and interests including the LGBTQA Resource Center, Office of Global Services, Latinx Student Cultural Center, Asian American Center, and many more.

Curriculum

The coursework for the Graduate Certificate in Business Management for Healthcare explores the fundamentals of managing successful healthcare organizations in order to deliver optimal patient outcomes.

In your required coursework, you'll study the underlying structure of the American healthcare system—and identify its unique challenges and opportunities. The electives you choose will broaden your knowledge in areas such as health policy, health informatics, and supply chain management for healthcare.

Required courses

Covers the organization, financing, and outcomes of the U.S. healthcare system. Studies opportunities and challenges to improve the cost and quality of healthcare and expand adequate coverage to all.
HINF 5105 | 3 credits
Offers students an opportunity to understand general business strategy concepts as they relate to the healthcare industry. Explores how to analyze market opportunities and challenges as they apply to various healthcare organizations, such as hospitals, physician organizations, and nursing homes. Presents and discusses analytical frameworks for making strategic decisions, drawing on different disciplines, including economics, management, and psychology. Strategic issues include mergers and acquisitions, vertical integration, joint ventures and alliances, performance-control systems, and organizational design.
STRT 6220 | 3 credits
Covers key issues and introduces management principles in health organization management. Offers students an opportunity to apply important theoretical ideas, such as systems thinking and organizational learning, to meet challenges effectively, to learn how the healthcare workplace functions, and how to manage in these workplaces. Emphasizes case-based learning, critical thinking, and evidence-based management using individual and group projects. Introduces cutting-edge tools in areas such as work redesign, performance management, brand enhancement, and quality improvement. Addresses the management imperatives of today's healthcare organizations and how to implement strategies and programs to meet those imperatives effectively. Intended for anyone interested in working or managing within the healthcare industry, including the field of public health.
HRMG 6220 | 3 credits

Electives (Select 1 or 2)

Uses basic economic concepts to illuminate the many factors that shape health, healthcare, and the healthcare system in the United States. Examines the role of these concepts in explaining the challenges faced in achieving three core goals of the healthcare system: increasing access, limiting cost, and improving quality. Explores how policy makers, market participants, and others can remedy access, cost, and quality deficiencies. Illustrates how economic concepts can be applied to the study of health and health behaviors.
LAW 7617 | 3 credits
Introduces the history and current status of information systems in healthcare: information architectures, administrative and clinical applications, evidence-based medicine, information retrieval, decision support systems, security and confidentiality, bioinformatics, information system cycles, the electronic health record, key health information systems and standards, and medical devices. 
HINF 5101 | 3 credits
Focuses on the conceptual and methodological foundations for evaluating the quality of care of healthcare providers—both individual providers and healthcare organizations. Aimed at students pursuing careers in public health, public policy, healthcare management, and the various health professions in the growing field of quality evaluation and improvement. Also designed to give healthcare providers an appreciation for how they may be evaluated. Examines scientific issues in the measurement of quality of care as well as key quality evaluation methods. Also covers the use of risk adjustment and other methodologies for comparing the quality of healthcare providers. Focuses on mechanisms that assess quality, including licensure, accreditation, and board certification.
PHTH 5232 | 3 credits
Examines concepts and topics related to the design and management of supply chain operations in the healthcare sector. Focuses on activities and functions such as inventory control, order fulfillment, logistics, procurement, managing processes, relationship management, and information technology systems. Introduces various tools and techniques that enhance effective supply chain operations in healthcare organizations.
SCHM 6223 | 3 credits

The curriculum is subject to change by D'Amore-McKim faculty. Course offerings may vary by semester.

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