MM Health Care Distinctives

Designed especially for managers, health care practitioners, and other executives.


In today’s rapidly evolving health care industry, the line between practitioner and manager is becoming blurred. Many aspiring managers face issues that your functional or clinical experience doesn’t prepare you to handle expertly, such as:

  • How do I make a business case for a new piece of technology?
  • How do I make rational choices between competing budget requests?
  • How can I develop a strategy for a particular line of business?
  • How do I improve our processes?

The Vanderbilt MM Health Care is especially designed to help managers, clinicians, other health care administrators and professionals gain the knowledge and skills to deal with questions like these (and many more). Whereas the typical MBA covers a range of functional areas and industries and MHA degrees are too narrowly focused on administration, the Vanderbilt MM Health Care encompasses the leadership, strategy and entrepreneurial management skills required in health care organizations. The MM Health Care curriculum is specifically crafted to help transform specialists into robust organizational managers.

Few others offer the same world-class combination of strengths. A world-class business school, world-class medical center and world-class health care business community.


Here, health care and business are a truly integrated powerhouse. Owen collaborates on health care business programs with Vanderbilt University Medical Center (just down the block) and the 300+ companies comprising Nashville’s vibrant health care community (including the Nashville Health Care Council and Leadership Council). Our unique position in the capital of health care strategically places the MM Health Care program at the heart of the intersection of business and health care.

Nowhere else is this combination of strengths merged so tightly. As a result, you are singularly positioned to understand the business of health care—and apply that knowledge advantageously in your career and your organization.

Management education meets industry expertise.


As a result of Vanderbilt’s unique convergence of strengths, you benefit from an educational experience that gives you the best of both worlds. We designed the program in collaboration with top-tier health care delivery organizations, so it only made sense that the program is taught in collaboration as well.

In the classroom, Vanderbilt business faculty and health care executives join together to help you understand both the clinical and the organizational issues that face health care organizations every day. Distinguished researchers, experts in health care policy and economics, executives and entrepreneurs from an array of health care organizations are among the renowned instructors you will learn from in the MM Health Care program. And the world-class Walker Management Library in combination with the Eskind Biomedical Library offer unparalleled personal service and access to high-end business and health care information resources.

An immersion in a real-world Capstone Project. An emphasis on leadership development. Immediate ROI for you and your organization.


Perhaps no industry is evolving more quickly than health care. Having the skills to solve complex business problems, influence key stakeholders and make strategic organizational decisions is required to succeed as a leader in this fast-paced environment.

In just one year, you’ll be immersed in a real-world Capstone Project applying your new knowledge to a significant business initiative for a health care organization (possibly your own sponsoring organization). Working as part of a team, you hone teamwork skills and learn to problem-solve in new ways while making decisions of critical importance for your organization.  You’ll make an immediate impact and provide substantial ROI for your sponsoring organization.

With a goal of equipping you to move into management in your organization, in the MM Health Care program you’ll have access to premier leadership diagnostic tools used by Fortune 500 CEOs. Through access to these tools, you’ll equip yourself with the leadership techniques necessary to manage people, projects or processes. You’ll gain stronger leadership skills and a manager’s toolkit for immediate ROI for yourself.

Testimonial_Dell Yarbrough Dell Yarbrough
MM Health Care 2010
Assoc. Professor, Otolaryngology and Cancer Biology
Vanderbilt University

I decided to return to school and pursue the Vanderbilt MMHC program because as a mid-career surgeon-scientist who had attained a certain level of success, I realized that knowledge and utilization of business concepts would be necessary for continued advancement for me and my program within the larger organization. My training had well prepared me to care for patients and to conduct molecular and translational research; however, it had not even hinted at critical business concepts.

Testimonial_Walt Woods Walt Woods
MM Health Care 2009
Dir. of Ambulatory Operations, Vanderbilt Dept. of Pharmacy
VU Medical Center

The leadership at Owen is stellar. The fact that Owen and Vanderbilt Medical Center have worked together to establish the program will result in outstanding experiences and results for its students.

Adv Cert in HC Mgmt

Testimonial_Tina Williams Tina Williams
MM Health Care 2010
Director, Access Services
Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital

The speakers that have come to the classes to teach have been world-class and provided insights into the struggles our nation is going through with regard to providing care for our citizens and keeping up with the rising cost of health care. Senator Frist, Congressman Jim Cooper, to name a few, have assisted our class in understanding the magnitude of the deficit we are faced with and the politics involved in changing the way we think as a nation.