Health Services Administration
The time has never been better to pursue a degree in health administration.
Demand for healthcare administrators is high and growing in Pittsburgh and nationally, with new facilities and care providers joining an already busy field. Changes in healthcare delivery demand trained administrators and managers who understand how to achieve cost-effective care through process improvement and a focus on overall wellness.
RMU offers both our B.S. and M.S. in Health Services Administration (HSA) in a flexible, convenient, fully online format. The B.S. degree is also available in a traditional on campus classroom format. All classes are taught by experienced faculty and working professionals who offer an extensive network of industry contacts and employers that give our graduates an edge as they enter the workforce. The master’s program is accredited by CAHME, and the bachelor’s program is certified by AUPHA.
WHY CHOOSE RMU FOR HEALTH SERVICES ADMINISTRATION?
READY FOR GROWTH
Demand for healthcare administrators is high and growing in Pittsburgh and nationally, with new facilities and care providers joining an already busy field. Changes in healthcare delivery demand trained administrators and managers who understand how to achieve cost-effective care through process improvement and a focus on overall wellness.
CUSTOMIZABLE INTERNSHIPS
RMU programs in Health Services Administration place a premium on tailoring every student’s internship experience for maximum career benefit. They are designed to fit your busy schedule, and can be broken up into two or even three shorter internships with special focus on patient safety, compliance, operations, or many other options.
FACULTY WITH INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE
RMU professors have industry experience and connections that keep lessons relevant to today’s healthcare environment while putting students into a network where they can succeed. The program's director, Holly Hampe, D.Sc., has over 30 years of healthcare experience, with an extensive background in patient safety, quality, risk management, and regulatory affairs.
LEARN ABOUT OUR PROGRAMS
- M.S. in Health Services Administration
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The M.S. in Health Services Administration program positions healthcare professionals for upper-level management opportunities in the expanding healthcare industry. The changes underway in healthcare delivery demand trained administrators and managers who understand how to achieve cost-effective care through process improvement and a focus on overall wellness.
The fully-online graduate program is taught by experienced faculty and working professionals. Students are admitted in the fall semester and remain in a cohort model for two years, which also creates networking opportunities with fellow students.
Students are exposed to a variety of healthcare experiences which prepare them for increasingly responsible leadership roles in all healthcare environments. Internships can be customized in several ways, and provide individualized opportunities for students to apply academic theories from class into managerial practices at successive levels of employment.
- B.S. in Health Services Administration
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The B.S. in Health Services Administration prepares students to become leaders in healthcare organizations in a time of rapid change and expansion. Future administrators must be prepared to deal with evolving integrated patient care delivery systems, technological innovations, and an increasingly complex regulatory environment, while improving efficiency and quality.
The program is available in traditional classroom format or wholly online Curriculum integrates theory, practical experience, and relevant case studies, developing a comprehensive understanding of the healthcare industry and a focused leadership style adapted to the reality of patient care delivery today. The program ends with an internship that is customized based on the student’s area of interest and focus.
The B.S. in Health Services Administration is the only program of its kind in the region accredited by the Association of University Programs in Health Administration.
4+1 Accelerated Program
HSA is also available as a 4+1 accelerated bachelor to master’s degree program. Graduate with both a bachelor's and master's degree in five quick years. The best part: keep your merit-based financial aid through your fifth year of study. Learn more.
HSA Virtual Open House for RMU's HSA Programs
Robert Morris University faculty and staff speak with other healthcare officials about the benefits of a Health Services Administration master's or bachelor's degree.
Contact Us
Holly Hampe
Director, Health Services Administration Program
hampe@rmu.edu
412-397-5483
Scaife Hall 118
- Read Full Bio
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Holly M. Hampe, D.Sc., is Health Services Administration program director and an assistant professor at Robert Morris University in the School of Nursing, Education and Human Studies. She has over 30 years of healthcare experience, with an extensive background in patient safety, quality, risk management and regulatory affairs.
Before coming to RMU, Hampe was the vice president and chief quality officer for St. Clair Hospital in Mt. Lebanon. Her hospital administration experience includes general and nursing administration, quality, risk management, patient safety, and regulatory affairs. She also works as a national regulatory affairs consultant for hospital and home health organizations and is a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality.
As a registered nurse, Hampe has hospital and home care experience. She also has experience with a group purchasing organization in the development of its quality and patient safety program as the national director of quality, and with insurance healthcare cost containment products.
Her publications focus on quality management and performance improvement, identifying ways to ensure patient safety. As a creative, innovative, energetic and positive individual, Hampe is a “people person” and receives energy from those around her.
Educational background:
- D.Sc. in Information Systems and Communication, Robert Morris University
- M.S. in Risk Management, Finch University/Chicago Medical School
- M.S. in Health Administration, University of Pittsburgh
- B.S.N., Penn State University
RMU is creating a new breed of healthcare professionals prepared to deal with the migration of inpatient to outpatient settings and qualified to deal with quality and data analytics. There’s a foresightedness to the program and the students are well trained.
Mark DeRubeis
Executive Director, Premiere Medical Associates
RMU students come well prepared. They are professional, have excellent questions, they’re inquisitive and excited to learn.
Kaitlin Shotsberger
Executive Director of Quality and Care Management, St. Clair Hospital
With 70,000 patients and 500 care providers throughout Florida, Millennium Physician Group manages a lot of critical information and records, and accuracy, instant access, and patient confidentiality are all essential. As the person in charge of all that data, Eric Ramsey comes from years of experience as a career IT professional. An RMU degree in Health Services Administration positioned him for success in the field.
The online B.S. degree program was convenient for a working professional like Eric. He especially liked the way the online discussion groups allowed him and his professors and classmates to compose questions and answers more thoughtfully than an off-the-cuff classroom discussions.
Courses covered all aspects of healthcare administrators need to understand — marketing, finance, reimbursement and billing, managerial strategies, operational questions, managing protected data, and government policy. And soon after Eric earned his diploma, he also earned an executive promotion.
What I loved about it, all the instructors I had were already in the industry, everybody had current real-world experience, and the classes were always up to date and current.
Eric Ramsey, Director of Clinical Information Services
Millennium Physician Group, Fort Myers, Fla.
One of the reasons I chose Robert Morris’s program is the good reputation it has in the industry here in Pittsburgh.
Joanna Hughes, Clinical Integration Specialist
St. Clair Hospital
I was able to use concepts I learned in the program and relate them to actual issues I was facing in the job. That was unbelievably beneficial to me. I wasn’t being trained to be a cookie-cutter leader. I was being developed into the leader I am today.
Daniel Hughes, Director of Clinical Operations
MedExpress Worksite Clinics
From Virginia to Long Island to Orlando, Joanna and Daniel Hughes enjoyed the adventures of working as traveling nurses after they earned their nursing degrees. But Joanna started to think she wanted more from her career. She enrolled in RMU’s online Health Services Administration graduate program.
Joanna set aside Tuesdays and Thursdays for readings, discussions, and other required work, and her favorite part: Dr. Holly Hampe’s frequent video interviews and Q&A sessions with prominent healthcare industry administrators, something that helped Joanna start to figure out how a new career might look.
When she and Daniel finished their traveling and returned for jobs in Pittsburgh, Joanna worked as a nursing unit supervisor for about a year. Then Dr. Hampe contacted her to tell her about a job opening she would be perfect for, analyzing quality control data at St. Clair Hospital and integrating it into clinical care. Joanna applied, and got the job.
By that time, her husband was taking graduate classes in Health Services Administration at RMU too. He had seen firsthand how Joanna had broadened her professional knowledge in a format that suited her and allowed her to work full time. He needed that flexibility too, working as an ER manager. And it worked. Daniel’s new job — which he got after earning his master’s at RMU — is at MedExpress, where he works with companies that offer their employees an on-site health clinic.
Knowing she had a job even before she earned her master’s degree in Health Services Administration at RMU was a big relief for Brittney Mattis.
She had chosen an internship at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in the compliance department, and found that the skills she learned in class helped her to excel. So much so that they offered Brittney a permanent position auditing physician treatment documentation and billing records.
But then she heard about an opportunity in operations, and decided to go for it. And she got it. Now Brittney handles the daily staff planning for 750 anesthesiologists and CRNAs at operating rooms in 13 different hospitals and surgery centers throughout the network. During the coronavirus emergency, with cases spiking in hospitals across the region, Brittany has been a key part of the team building contingency plans and also facilitating and coordinating them.
It is like solving a new puzzle every day, and it is definitely a step up professionally. Brittney says her graduate studies and their focus on the fast-changing landscapes in healthcare prepared her for exactly that kind of exciting career switch.
Having this degree gives me a really good opportunity to move into a different area if I choose to. It’s really nice that it’s not limiting to one specific area of health administration.
Brittney Mattis
Administrative Liaison, UPMC
You get the whole campus experience and you get to interact with people from all over the world.
Eden Atty
Senior major in Health Services Administration
Working in an assisted living center back home in New Jersey, Eden Atty decided her heart was in healthcare. To prepare herself for a successful career, she enrolled in the bachelor’s degree program in Health Services Administration at RMU.
She liked the idea of a private university and a residential campus, where she could join the crafts club and do some crocheting after class. She also was eager to experience a short-term study abroad program in South Africa, where an RMU professor took them on tours of hospitals and an orphanage and they met local healthcare executives.
And Eden also appreciated how her professors helped her to customize her 120 hours of internship to get the most out of the requirement. That’s how she wound up with three different placements, which has helped her experience some of the different daily demands and challenges at hospitals and long-term care facilities. That kind of knowledge will put Eden on track to make the best career choices.