Articulation of undergraduate and graduate education in health administration: barriers and strategies for the future

The initiation of the hospital administration degree at the master's level and not the baccalaureate level was an intentional decision. Unfortunately, during this formative half-decade, the baccalaureate programs developed in a vacuum, isolated from one another and from the long-established graduate programs. While there is not a clear professional consensus that the lack of undergraduate degree articulation with graduate education is a problem, the authors believe this to be the case and believe that many faculty agree. This paper will address the history of health administration education, current academic pathways to careers in health administration, and detailed barriers and strategies to academic degree articulation. The paper concludes that discussion of health administration degree articulation has received modest attention and discussion for more than twenty years, and neither formal relationships nor certification/accreditation has addressed the issue. The authors believe that creation of articulated degrees is desirable and call for AUPHA and CAHME to develop a task force to address barriers and strategies for articulation. Concurrently, while national policy would facilitate more rapid change, we recommend that individual undergraduate and graduate degree programs explore individual relationships as a means to achieve models for the profession as an alternative to the status quo.