Health Emergency Management | MS

Program Overview

The Master of Science in Health Emergency Management program offers a hybrid cohort model curriculum. The hybrid curriculum prepares the graduate to take a leadership role reflective of their specialty through rigorous course work and hands on simulation lab exercises. The program overall is designed to foster the development of resilient, sustainable communities, and that produce an effective response when events exceed a community’s ability to cope with disasters, hazards, and threats. The Master of Science in Health Emergency Management promotes the mission of the college; addresses the key functions of health emergency management; and reflect the best practices, vision, and principles of the discipline.

The program is comprehensive in that it addresses leadership and best practice standards, and includes rigorous simulations and hands-on skills needed to inform, plan and prioritize the use of resources within the field of health emergency management. There are one of two tracks a student can be accepted into the Direct Track and Mid-Career Track.

Direct Track: A student with an undergraduate degree from a regionally accredited institution in a related field with less than four years experience in a field such as but not limited to Paramedic, Emergency Management, Fire Science, Nursing, Public Safety, well as other fields.

Mid-Career Track: Providing evidence of 4 years or more of progressive work experience in disaster, disaster medicine or concentration in pre-hospital/emergency areas. If accepted into the mid-career track, two HEM courses (6 credits) will be waived, as assessed and decided by the program director.

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Course of Study

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Course Of Study

Degree Requirements

The program is 31 – 36 credits, depending on the track in which student were accepted. This includes 10-12 courses (3 credits each), and 2-3 simulation exercises, 1-2 credits each, and the option for a thesis. If the student chooses to write a thesis, it will be supervised by the Program Director and a Faculty Advisor. Each course runs for an 8-week term and there are six terms per year. Students must achieve a GPA of 3.0 or higher for the program, with a grade no lower than B- in any individual course, except for the thesis, which is graded Pass/Fail.

Curriculum Map

The courses are taught live at Anna Maria College, BIDMC Disaster Medicine campus and Harvard Medical School by a combined Master Program faculty.

The Master of Science in Health Emergency Management involves coursework coupled with three on-ground, hands-on simulations per year. The three, multi-day simulation exercises will take place over an academic year at or near Anna Maria College’s campus in Paxton, located minutes from Worcester.

The program curriculum includes 12, eight-week courses delivered over six terms and the degree can be obtained in one year provided students take two courses per term. The program is 42 credits, which includes 12 courses (3 credits each), 3 simulation exercises (totaling 6 credits) and the option for a thesis.

Students must achieve a GPA of 3.0 or higher for the program, with a grade no lower than B- in any individual course. This excludes the thesis, which is graded pass/fail.

Simulation 1: Health Readiness Training, Drills and Exercises
Simulation 2: Humanitarian Health Assessment Systems and Risks
Simulation 3: Mass-gathering Disaster Health Incident and Recovery

Click here to download the 36-Credit Health Emergency Management Curriculum Map.

Click here to download the 31-Credit Health Emergency Management Curriculum Map.

Program Learning Outcomes

As a graduate student in Health Emergency Management you will:

Recognize the role of multi-stakeholder planning and response in addressing the complex circumstances under which public health hazards occur
Describe the disaster mitigation and preparedness steps necessary for community and public health system resiliency
Apply the concepts and logistics of emergency management and disaster response to lessen the impact of disasters
Analyze and associate the key factors and modalities to effective health emergency response
Evaluate the effectiveness, and quality of response influence of sustainable coalitions