Health Care Quality

The Health Care Quality program at GW was developed to meet an emerging demand for quality and patient safety specialists who have the capacity and competence to grow and sustain a culture of continuous improvement at all levels and within every sector of the health care delivery system.

Graduates will be prepared for quality and patient safety leadership, management, and research positions within health care organizations or policy agencies, and be able to:

• Develop, implement, and evaluate quality and patient safety improvement initiatives
• Cultivate strategies to lead organizational change toward a quality-focused culture
• Translate national quality expectations into daily operations
• Apply processes and tools to measure, analyze, and interpret quality improvement data
• Design and implement information technology systems to support quality assurance
• Conduct research to drive clinical and operational decision-making

Why Should I Choose GW?

The program's versatile distance-based format allows health care professional to advance their education while working full time, without sacrificing a rigorous curriculum and access to the resources and experts at GW. Students learn in a convenient distance-learning format from nationally renowned faculty, who all hold positions at GW and some are affiliated with the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). All courses are web-based and offered in a flexible, asynchronous format to meet the needs of busy professionals.

The rigorous curriculum focuses on implementing quality and patient safety improvement initiatives; facilitating organizational change toward a quality-focused culture; translating national quality expectations into daily operations; evaluating processes and tools to measure, analyze, and interpret quality improvement data; and utilizing information technology systems to support quality assurance. All courses from the Graduate Certificate are transferable into the MSHS in Health Care Quality. Students must apply and be accepted to the MSHS program to have the credits transfer.

Up to six credit hours of coursework may be accepted as transfer credit if deemed to be equivalent to existing courses and approved by the department chair or program director. However, it is worth remembering that no course taken in the past, which has been applied towards a degree can be transferred into our degree programs. For that reason, we encourage students who have already earned degrees in similar disciplines to consider the graduate certificate program.

Who Benefits from the Program?

Prospective students and students currently enrolled in the Health Care Quality Program at GW have varied academic, professional, and health care backgrounds. The unifying passion among GW’s HCQ students is a drive to improve quality and patient safety in health care settings.

The HCQ program creates a learning environment in which students engage in class activities that are meaningful and immediately applicable. Therefore, students are expected to have at least two years of professional experience working in a health care setting, which does not need to be clinical.

What Career Opportunities Await Our Graduates?

After graduation, the opportunities are plentiful for an individual seeking employment in the health care quality field, such as:

• Health quality manager for a health center, hospital, rehabilitation center, skilled nursing facility, or nursing home
• Quality assurance consulting
• Analyst for health policy organizations with a focus on quality, such as CMS, NQF, AHRQ, and JACHO

The following requirements must be fulfilled: 36 credits in required courses.

Up to 6 credits of previously earned graduate-level coursework may be accepted as transfer credit. Official transfer credit evaluations are conducted only for admitted students.

• Completion of a bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited college or university prior to matriculation into the program
• Minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0
• Relevant work experience in health care institutions or clinical settings
• Resume
• Two letters of recommendation are required and must be submitted through the GW Online Application.
• Statement of Purpose. Please include a 250-500 word essay describing your reasons for undertaking study at The George Washington University, and your academic objectives, career goals, and related qualifications, including collegiate, professional, and community activities, relevant to your program of interest. Include any substantial accomplishments not already mentioned on the application form.
• Official Transcripts
• TOEFL: 250 computer-based or 100 Internet-based
• PTE: overall score of 68
• IELTS: an overall band score of 7.0, with no individual band score below 6.0
• A non-refundable application fee of $75 is required.