Provides students with an overview of healthcare services in the United States, including their historical development within a unique social, economic, and political environment. Current institutional structures and delivery systems are described, as are the evolving health needs of Americans. Emphasis is placed upon the basic concepts and issues associated with the management and regulation of healthcare providers and the delivery of services.

In today’s highly competitive healthcare environment, data-driven decision making is key to assuring quality, increasing access, minimizing cost, and supporting innovation. In an industry focused on evidence-based decisions, leaders must be able to understand current research and critically evaluate research presented in the media and in peer-reviewed publications. The course emphasizes the use of various data sources from across the health ecosystem, the development of research questions, hypotheses, study design, analytic approaches, and data visualization techniques. Students will learn how to assess the validity and reliability of information, and interpret data to optimize the decision-making process and assure that decisions are evidence-based.

Federal and state-level healthcare policies affect a wide range of issues, including access to care, quality, cost, and modes of delivery. Effective healthcare managers must interpret and anticipate a changing policy landscape, and strategically apply that interpretation as part of the process of organizational planning and execution. In this course, the social and economic implications of contemporary healthcare policies are explored. Emphasis is placed on how public policy (e.g., Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act of 2010) influences human resources/capacity, values, needs, reimbursements, and regulation of individuals, insurers, and medical and healthcare organizations.

Economics is a large driver of what happens in the health sector. The course provides an understanding of the economic drivers that effect patients, providers, and payers across the health-related industries. As a leader in these industries, it is important to understand and anticipate the economic challenges of spending growth, expensive new technologies, and how payment reform can promote lower cost high quality care. The course includes an overview of economic principles, including supply and demand and perfect markets, and explores the economic challenges of healthcare economics and how health and health services are different from other goods. Considerable attention is given to topics of current public concern, including market failure, government interventions, health insurance, rapidly increasing cost, value, and expensive new technologies.

This course explores the critical role of e-health and information systems in the planning, operation, and management of healthcare organizations. Students will learn how to assess and evaluate health information systems and business requirements in a variety of settings such as health systems, hospitals, and medical practices. Students will develop skills in healthcare technology implementation design that address industry-specific requirements such as translating HIPAA and other regulations into specific technology decisions while implementing medical systems (EMR, lab, clinical services, medical database providers, etc.). Students will also learn how to manage multi-institutional relationships as they are expressed in technology implementations, including the many vendor configurations, but also cross-provider organization relationships. Specific topics include data and systems integrations, communications protocols, security standards, procurement, and authentication and authorization.

This course explores the theoretical foundations and application of quality improvement methods, tools, and strategies needed to increase organizational effectiveness. The course focuses on measurement and accountability in healthcare delivery systems through the examination and analysis of data, structures, processes, and outcomes. Process improvement theories and models are explored with the goal of preparing students to lead and practice in organizations that advance high reliability principles, patient safety, inter-professional teamwork, and continuous learning.

Decisions involving strategy and marketing must be based on a manager’s overall understanding of the organization’s mission, goals, and objectives. This applied research project provides methods to evaluate organizational performance and productivity, analyze internal and external resources, and perform needs assessment. The course presents various models and methods for planning, branding, and positioning of healthcare services. It also emphasizes the importance of creating a strategic planning process.

As the culmination and synthesis of the program experience, the applied research project requires each individual student to develop a business plan for the expansion of or development of a new healthcare facility. The business plan must address the major themes of each prior course, including relevant policies, quality initiatives, financial planning, human resource planning, technology planning, and planning for regulatory compliance.

The course introduces leadership models, theories, and skills needed to successfully manage and lead healthcare organizations through transformational versus transactional leadership styles. Students use a variety of self-assessment tools (e.g., Myers-Briggs, SWOT analysis of self, leadership-style inventory) to develop self-awareness and to better understand the role of emotional intelligence in effective leadership. Students gain knowledge and skills for building and growing the interpersonal relationships and political skills required to develop and lead teams, and to successfully advance from organizational management roles to leadership roles. 

This course examines how healthcare organizations can innovate and adapt to the ever-evolving needs and demands of a dynamic, competitive, and regulatory healthcare environment. To do so, the course explores types of innovations and how individuals/organizations develop them, factors that affect the adoption and implementation of these innovations, and approaches to evaluating whether these innovations had their intended effect.