Courses In: Health

This course provides graduate students with experiential learning in healthcare consulting through live projects with early-stage technology founders funded through private equity and venture capital dollars. Students work in teams with one of three companies:

The application of digital tools in healthcare has grown exponentially over the last several years. They are now firmly entrenched in the healthcare delivery model. However, after experiencing this explosive growth, the application and potential of healthtech tools remain uncertain and potentially unfulfilled.

Leading large healthcare delivery organizations in today's dynamic landscape demands exceptional strategic agility from managers. Navigating economic challenges, a mobile workforce, the emergence of AI, and increasingly more discerning healthcare consumer, require leaders to not just adapt, but to drive change and deliver results. This course will  explore the various market forces that are at play for today's healthcare executive and how those elements are changing the calculus for organizations to be successful at executing its mission and vision.

This class will utilize a hands-on and practical approach to understanding reproductive healthcare in the context of policy and management. Students will have the opportunity to think through real-world case studies and engage with relevant reproductive healthcare topics. Such topics include contraception, abortion, forced sterilization, abuses of power, gender, and gender identity.

The Realities of Managing Complex Health Systems course is designed to provide students with an up close perspective of how large health systems operate. Using real life case studies, expert insight, and relevant reading materials the course will outline the problems, issues, and possible solutions for essential areas of management, operations, and finance such as:

This course aims to improve your ability to effectively manage and lead health service organizations.  We examine a range of key challenges that managers must address to optimize organizational performance, including questions of mission, vision, and strategy ("What areas or activities should we be working in?") and questions of organizational design and operations ("How can we perform effectively in this area?").

Required for MPA Health students. This introductory course is designed to familiarize students with basic concepts and ideas concerning the distribution of health and illness in society, the organization of the health care system, and the relationship of one to the other. We begin by considering the evolution of the U.S. health care system and of health policy. We then present an international perspective on the U.S. health care system with an emphasis on the Affordable Care Act, alternative government roles, current challenges and the future of the health care system.

This course describes the growing involvement of government in stimulating and directing the development of information technology in healthcare organizations. Included is a discussion of attempts to exchange information for the purposes of improving the quality of personal healthcare and public health. Methods for determining the financial value of information technology are described. Techniques for insuring the security and privacy of health information are presented.

This course encourages students to think creatively about what it means for a healthcare organization to make quality the highest priority. We will explore the current forces driving the push toward quality outcomes and accountability at all levels and settings of healthcare, while focusing on the philosophy of continuous improvement through team work and statistical thinking. Students will use structural tools for analysis, decision making and performance measurement.

This graduate course is an introduction to major health policy issues and examines the role of government in the health care system. An important focus of the course is an assessment of the role of policy analysis in the formation and implementation of national and local health policy. Because much of government health policy relates to or is implemented through payment systems, emphasis will be placed on the discussion of the policy implications of how government pays for care.

This course is designed to study the essential role of human resources management within healthcare organizations. It is required for health management students and recommended for health policy and finance students. In order to meet the challenges of the marketplace, organizations will need to improve the quality of the services they provide; streamline their clinical delivery and support systems, and transform their human resources management accordingly.

This course incorporates topics of planning and financial decision making as applied to health-care organizations. This course will cover two main topics:

-Financial analysis both as a proactive exercise and a tool for organizational control.

-Issues of budgeting, cost determination, pricing and rate setting in a healthcare environment.