Managing the Professional Practice
You’ve mastered a health profession. Are you ready to run a business?
You’re well on your way to a career in a health profession, and you will soon enter a highly competitive marketplace. Are you ready for the challenges of running a business?
Managing the Professional Practice is intended for an inter-professional cohort of students and practitioners in health professions where. . .
- The private or franchise practice remains a common model
- Intense clinical training leaves little room for developing business skills
- A formal business credential is considered an asset by employers and lenders
Health settings include dental, human and veterinary medicine, pharmacy, advance practice nursing, and alternative medicine including chiropractic, acupuncture, and massage.
The certificate coursework develops knowledge in areas that research has identified as essential to success in practice management:
- leadership and human resource management
- financial management
- marketing and communications
- practice design and development
- practice operations and quality
Why formal, inter-professional business education?
Quite simply, the depth and breadth of learning you experience in credit-based, inter-professional education pays dividends:
- You’ll have an edge in job interviews and salary negotiations. Employers struggle to find candidates with formal business education.
- Once you have a job, you’ll very likely earn more money. Numerous studies have shown a direct correlation between business education and higher earnings.
- You’ll have a better chance of acquiring business loans. At some point you’ll need a loan; lenders and investors look for formal business education as a hedge against investment risk.
- You’ll have a much greater chance at long term success. Business education will shorten the time it takes for you to become profitable.
- You'll be exposed to successful business practices from across the health professions. Not only will this expose your profession to a broader range of successful models, but you'll be better prepared to do business with individuals in related health professions.
Why the Certificate in Applied Business?
It’s focused and relevant.
The sheer size of many business curricula can require a multi-year, full-time commitment, 10’s of thousands of dollars of additional loans, and may include course work not directly applicable to your practice. By limiting the curriculum to only the essential core competencies of successful practice management, the Managing the Professional Practice delivers maximum relevance at minimum cost.
It's designed with you in mind.
You’re busy, concerned about debt, and eager to start earning income. That’s why Managing the Professional Practice is…
- Focused—comprising only the essential courses you need
- Affordable—offered at undergraduate tuition rates
- Fully Online—providing maximum access to a national audience
- Summer-delivered—making it manageable for busy professionals and students
Courses (15 credits)*
The Certificate in Applied Business—Managing the Professional Practice comprises five online courses. All courses are three credits and must be taken for a letter grade.
Foundation Courses
ABus 4703 Marketing for the Professional Practice, G. Kaufmann (3 credits)
Internal /external environments, market segmentation, positioning, branding, development of marketing plan
ABus 4705 Leadership and Management for the Professional Practice, D. Lee (3 credits)
Motivation, diversity, teams, leadership, organizational design, ethics, negotiations
ABus 4707 Financial Management for the Professional Practice, D. Lee (3 credits)
Financial principles, tools, application to organizational decisions, development of business plan
Building the Professional Practice Series
ABus 4709 Building the Professional Practice I: Anatomy of the Practice, M. Westfall (3 credits)
Structure of the practice, core values, design of services, physical design, risk management, staffing
ABus 4711 Building the Professional Practice II: Physiology of the Practice (Summer 2012), M. Westfall (3 credits)
Practice operations, quality, Six Sigma, team building, banking relationships, entrepreneurial spirit, transitions
*You may request to substitute ABus 3xxx/4xxx and/or HSM 3xxx/4xxx management-related and/or business-related courses with adviser approval.
Faculty
Geoffrey Kaufmann, MHA, FACHE, CEO, American Red Cross NCBS, former director of marketing, University of Minnesota Hospitals
David E. Lee, DVM, MBA, director, University of Minnesota Veterinary Hospital, St, Paul, MN
Michael L. Westfall, DVM, MBA, partner and vice president, Hudson Road Animal Hospital, Woodbury, MN
Resources for U of M Academic Health Center Students
Specific course information and FAQs for Academic Health Center students.
