e with a reasonable grade point average. Other possible prerequisites include letters of reference, a personal statement, and a resume that includes relevant work experience.
If you are applying to a program that is designed for nurses who are planning to transition into management roles, you may be required to submit proof of a current RN license. If you are applying for an advanced degree in health informatics, you may be expected to demonstrate proficiency with certain types of software.
What Do I Need to Know About Accreditation and Healthcare Administration Degrees?
As with any type of college degree, it’s very important that your healthcare administration degree or hospital administration degree comes from an accredited school or college. Colleges receive institutional accreditation in one of two forms: regional or national. You may have heard that regional accreditation is more prestigious than national accreditation, but this isn’t always true.
It is true however that credits from regionally accredited colleges are easier to transfer than credits from nationally accredited colleges. Some advanced degree programs will only accept students who completed undergraduate studies at regionally accredited colleges. So if you think you might want to build on your college education at some point – advancing from an associate’s degree to a bachelor’s degree, or from a bachelor’s degree to a master’s degree – you may want to limit your search to regionally accredited schools.
Also, specific degree programs within a given college can earn something called “specialized accreditation.” The Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME) offers specialized accreditation to highly selective healthcare administration programs. According to CAHME, there are no fully online health administration degrees with CAHME accreditation. All CAHME accredited programs require some on-campus, group experiences, even if a portion of the course work is available through online classes.
However, CAHME only accredits master’s level degrees – including M.A.s, M.B.A.s, M.H.A.s, M.H.S.A.s, M.P.H.s and M.S. degrees. If you’re seeking an associate or a bachelor degree in healthcare administration, you don’t need to be concerned with CAHME accreditation. And if you’re a working professional who needs the convenience of an online master’s degree, you don’t necessarily have to abandon your plan for a CAHME-accredited college.
Point of caution: Healthcare administrators who manage nursing home facilities need to earn state certification. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “All states and the District of Columbia require nursing care facility administrators to have a bachelor's degree, pass a licensing examination, complete a state-approved training program, and pursue continuing education. Some states also require licenses for administrators in assisted-living facilities. A license is not required in other areas of medical and health services management.” Therefore, if you plan to work with elderly populations, you may wish to speak with several college enrollment counselors about how their degree programs prepare graduates for these certification requirements.