MBA (Healthcare Leadership)

This internationally-recognised MBA is designed for individuals aspiring to senior management positions in healthcare. The emphasis for your learning is directly rooted in management practice – the ‘master’ in the degree title signifies your ‘mastery’ of the art and science of management. To achieve this level of capability the programme concentrates on strategic analysis, interdisciplinary skills, intellectual stimulation and independent judgement and builds these upon a solid foundation of core disciplines, including human resource management, organisational behaviour, accounting and finance, marketing and operations.

This MBA is designed as an integrated programme. MBA modules are challenging but will always direct you towards improving your management capabilities. You will need to have some experiential knowledge at a managerial level and/or of decision-making, so that you have a practical business base on which to build your MBA learning.

You will learn to analyse, synthesise and evaluate a wide range of situations within the broad framework of organisations, their external context and internal management. Among these you will look at economic, environmental, social and technological change issues, corporate governance, markets and customers, managing resources and operations, financing organisations, management and development of people, developing information technologies for application in business and management within a global knowledge-based economy, and development of appropriate business policies and strategies within a changing context to meet stakeholder interests.

The MBA (Healthcare Leadership) is in two stages.

Stage 1 consists of Leading in healthcare (B718) which will prepare you to take up your first formal leadership role in healthcare followed by the MBA stage 1: management: perspectives and practice(B716) which is an integrated module covering all the core disciplines in the MBA curriculum. These 60-credit modules take 12 months to complete. You must pass Stage 1 before proceeding onto Stage 2.

Your first Stage 2 module is The dynamics of strategy (BB835) followed by Corporate finance (BB831). To complete your MBA, you then take a 30-credit compulsory action-learning based project module,Making a difference: the management initiative (B839). This is typically undertaken in your own organisation (though this is not a requirement) which enables you to demonstrate your mastery of the art of management. Although you study this module last, you will find that preparation for it begins with your first module and is embedded throughout your MBA studies.

You must complete this qualification within seven years.

You should note that the University’s unique study rule applies to this qualification. This means that you must include at least 60 credits from OU modules that have not been counted in any other OU qualification that has previously been awarded to you.

Career relevance and employability

Healthcare employers value the MBA (Healthcare Leadership) as an indication of high level business and management skills. These skills are in demand, increasingly so in times of economic uncertainty, and employers want practical experience, a thorough grasp of business, and the ability to lead at a strategic level. AMBA’s careers survey shows that MBA students can expect their salary to increase, and the MBA to have a positive impact on their career progression, as well as bring improvements to their organisation or business.

The Open University Business School is accredited internationally by the EFMD Quality Improvement System (EQUIS); by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB); and the MBA is accredited by the Association of MBAs (AMBA). Only a select group of less than 60 business schools worldwide have this triple-accredited status.

Students must be employed by the NHS (or an organisation which supports the NHS) and registered on, or have completed, Leading in healthcare (B718).

All entrants are required to have a minimum of three years’ experience in a managerial, professional or technical role. Usually this means students are at least 25 years old as it is unusual (but not impossible) to be able to satisfy the ‘experience’ requirement under this age.