Grace College will offer its students three new healthcare degree options this fall. A Master’s in Healthcare Administration (MHA) and a Master’s of Integrative and Functional Medicine will be offered in partnership with John Patrick University of Health and Applied Sciences in South Bend, Indiana. Grace will also introduce a new public health minor. These new degrees come in response to an increasing demand in healthcare which is projected to grow 15% in the next eight years according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Never have we needed reliable healthcare more than now. We are at a pivotal point in our country’s history in which the population is getting grayer while we are still stumbling through the fog of a pandemic. Even before COVID-19 arrived on American soil, certain parts of our country had only limited access to healthcare,” said Dr. Joseph Frentzel, chair of the Department of Science and Mathematics at Grace. “Grace hopes to impact this shortfall with a renewed emphasis in healthcare-related programming,” he said.
The MHA degree is quickly becoming one of the most sought-after graduate degrees in the country. Hospital systems are actively seeking MHAs with their more nuanced training in areas such as patient privacy and healthcare organization. The Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts a 32% growth in healthcare manager occupations. As the need for healthcare grows, so does the need for those who oversee these services.
The MHA at Grace will produce students to meet this need. Grace students will be proficient in both administrative and clinical skills and may choose to specialize in either oncology or radiology.
The Master’s of Integrative and Functional Medicine uniquely equips students to not only address the outcome of disease, but also analyze the factors that influenced its occurrence such as lifestyle and the environment. This degree enables graduates to come alongside and counsel patients and clients in a personalized and holistic way.
Grace undergraduate students will be able to simultaneously work on a master’s degree online through JPU and their bachelor’s at Grace. Through Grace’s accelerated degree program, students can graduate with both a bachelor’s and a master’s in just four years.
Finally, Grace has created a new public health minor. The minor emphasizes healthcare-related areas such as policymaking, advocacy and epidemiology. Students in the minor will gain a strong understanding of the determinants of community health and key methods of influence. The chief goal of this program is to help students identify and understand long-term factors that play a role in a person’s wellness.
“The pandemic has taught the world the importance of public health specialists who help coordinate responses to these deadly threats,” said Frentzel. “Through these new programs and minor, Grace is positioning its graduates to answer vexing threats to human health while living out the unifying belief that it is better to serve others before ourselves,” he said.
For more information on the MHA, visit www.grace.edu/programs/master-of-science-in-healthcare-administration-dual-degree/. To learn more about the integrative and functional medicine major, go to www.grace.edu/programs/masters-of-integrative-and-functional-medicine-dual-degree/ and visit www.grace.edu/programs/public-health-minor/ for the public health minor. For questions, contact Joe Frentzel at frentzjw@grace.edu.
