Benefits of MHA/MPH degree?

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Hello,

I am considering obtaining a MHA (Master's Health Admin) or MPH (Master's Public Health) degree in lieu of a nursing degree. I currently hold a BS in Health Sciences and have a variety of clinical experience, yet very little health admin experience. Does anyone know of benefits or drawbacks to this degree? Would a nursing degree be beneficial as well? (Obtaining BSN then applying to MHA programs)

Any tips, opinions, advice would help :)

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To clarify, I am considering a transition out of clinical care into the administration side of healthcare. I am aware that MPH and MHA degrees do not involve direct patient care or the use of nursing skills.

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Specializes in Surgical, quality,management.

However a lot of roles require a clinical degree mainly nursing. Roles where nurses are being managed usually require a nurse to manage them....

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Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.

I think it depends in what setting you want to work in. If you want to work in the hospital, it is far better to have a nursing degree.

If you want to work in mental health, public health, outpatient clinics, research, then a nursing degree is still good to have, but not necessary. If you have nurses working in the program they will have a different supervisor.

The big money is igenerally in the hospital. But nursing school is not for the faint of heart. If you don't want to be a nurse, don't do it.

I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that the MHA and MPH are different. My feeling is that the MPH gets more respect, at least where I work. I work in community mental health.

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I know little about the core requirements of a MHA. But I do have a MPH + nursing degree. This helps if I were planning on becoming quality assurance in a healthcare system, clinical program management, public health roles, infection prevention, etc. The MPH doesn't help me go into strictly management type positions. I'm not really even sure how you would get into the strictly administration part of hospitals. No idea... but that's ok for me... I have no interest in positions without a clinical component.

My advice is to do more research on positions you want and see if they also require a clinical component. Depending on the nature of the job, an MPH or nursing degree may help. But if you can find strictly admin-type jobs with adequate entry level positions, you're probably good with the MHA. Agree with the previous poster that any manager of any clinical department will almost always require clinical experience of whatever services that department provides (nursing, lab, RT, the list goes on).

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Hello,

I am considering obtaining a MHA (Master's Health Admin) or MPH (Master's Public Health) degree in lieu of a nursing degree. I currently hold a BS in Health Sciences and have a variety of clinical experience, yet very little health admin experience. Does anyone know of benefits or drawbacks to this degree? Would a nursing degree be beneficial as well? (Obtaining BSN then applying to MHA programs)

Any tips, opinions, advice would help :)

Who can say if it would be beneficial or not?

What you need to do is look on Indeed or other job websites at the jobs you are interested in, find out what their educational requirements are, and then set your educational goals to obtain those jobs.

PS- Having RN in your name and not being a RN is against the websites Terms of Service.

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