Courses

Global Health Policy

Global Health Policy is a case-based course designed to be highly participatory, engaging and relevant – whether you are work domestically or internationally. We provide an overview of Global Health as a field, discuss its history, and debate its most contentious issues. But we ground each of these conceptual debates with cases of real organizations, grappling with real problems, in specific country- based or regional contexts. Through the case-method, students are expected to bring to bear their ideals (and ideologies), and insert themselves into the shoes of leaders of organizations or governments facing a particular challenge and ask themselves—what would I do?

Overview of The Public Health System

Analytics & Managerial Decision-Making I

Managers are continually confronted with the need to make significant decisions concerning the clinical, organizational and financial performance of a health organization. Data analysis is one tool that supports such decision-making. This course develops analytical skills to prepare health care managers to make informed, data-driven decisions. Topics will include introductory data and statistical exploration from basic descriptive statistics to population and market estimation, sampling design and analysis, prediction, simulation, and causal inference. The focus will be on conceptual understanding and presentation of data. Students will also have the option to learn how to implement analytical techniques in the “R” programming language.

Epidemiology (Required for MPH Degree)

Epidemiology plays a central role in public health. This course introduces Executive MPH students to the basic principles, theory, methods, uses, and body of knowledge of epidemiology. Emphasis is placed on the roles, responsibilities, and needs of health professionals and managers in institutions where epidemiological studies are carried out, and on the contribution of epidemiology to health policy. Students who complete this course will be able to: (1) Understand the contribution of epidemiological studies to formulation and implementation of selected health policies; (2) Apply epidemiological methods to the evaluation of health programs and the formulation of health policies; (3) Describe key terms used in the epidemiology and prevention of infectious and chronic diseases.

Environmental Challenges for Healthcare Managers (Required for MPH Degree)

This course introduces students to the major physical, chemical and biological and social hazards in the healthcare industry. It explores the routes of entry and typical modes of interaction of environmental chemical hazards in humans. Students will learn about the regulatory structure governing control of environmental and occupational hazards in healthcare and the engineering and management approaches for assessing, preventing and controlling environmental and occupational hazards in at least one major department or sector within the healthcare industry.

Social and Behavioral Science (Required for MPH Degree)

This course considers how social science disciplines—particularly sociology,  but including anthropology, political science, psychology, and economics—have differently imagined public health and health policy. Students will learn to apply the tools of social science to the analysis, formulation, and evaluation of health programs and policies. This course is part of the core course requirement for the MPH. Upon completion of this course, it is expected that you will be able to: (1) understand the history and structure of the US healthcare system and specify how social, political, legal, technological, economic, and cultural forces have shaped it; (2) dscuss tensions around quality, access, and cost goals in healthcare; (3) apply social science frameworks to explain structural aspects of healthcare; (4) be able to explain social sciences approaches to the social determinants of health.

Program Evaluation (Required for MPH Degree)

Health program evaluation is the systematic assessment of the effectiveness of public health initiatives and activities. The central evaluation question usually is: “was this health program successful in reaching its objectives?”—generally improved health outcomes.  However, program evaluation principles may also be used to determine the need for programs in the first place, the fidelity of implementation of a program, and the cost-effectiveness of a program. The essential task of this course and program evaluation is to bring evidence to policymaking and program design.

Public Health Concepts (Required for MHA Degree)

This course exposes students to many of the core concepts and principles of public health required for them to work as administrators in healthcare settings. As managers and administrators, an understanding of these concepts is critically important if they are going to be in positions where they can influence the creation of innovative programs, deliver services, develop policies and ultimately impact the health of local, national and global communities. Students will be asked to learn concepts from a variety of disciplines and how to translate that information into practice. The translation process will occur as they apply their learnings to cases that will allow them to discuss the applicability of those concepts in an ever changing public health world and healthcare system.

The Pharmaceutical Industry: Innovation, Access, and Public Health

This course provides a structured overview of the pharmaceutical industry through a public health lens, with a focus on the real-world tensions between innovation, access, and equity. While grounded in the U.S. system, the course incorporates global comparisons to examine how different markets approach regulation, pricing, and access. Students will explore how medicines are developed, regulated, priced, marketed, and delivered, and analyze the roles, incentives, and decision-making dynamics of key stakeholders, including government, payers, advocacy groups, and industry. Through case studies, structured discussions, and applied exercises, students will evaluate complex tradeoffs that shape pharmaceutical decision-making and the consequences those decisions have for patients, health systems, and society. Assignments are structured to build progressively, from analyzing company-level decisions, to
developing policy positions, to synthesizing system-level challenges across the pharmaceutical ecosystem.

Health Care Management

Healthcare Accounting & Budgeting

Financial statements enable managers to evaluate the performance of an organization and assess its financial position.  Budgets, based on forecasts, take the form of projected statements and serve as an important managerial tool for planning and control purposes. This course provides an introduction to the accounting, budgeting and financial reporting techniques commonly used in the health care and not-for-profit environment.  Emphasis is placed on enabling students to become comfortable with financial analysis, budgets and commonly-used financial terminology so that they can effectively address financial matters they will encounter in leadership roles in health care and not-for-profit organizations.

Healthcare Finance

This course teaches the principles necessary for effective financial management in the healthcare industry and discusses the analyses used by managers to make strategic and operating decisions. It is intended to make administrators comfortable with managing the finances of the department or other entity for which they have responsibility. This course also examines how healthcare services are
financed under the U.S. system and discusses ongoing challenges to efficient financing.

Health Information Management

This course will teach the fundamentals of understanding how health information technology and the increasing role of Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Cloud Computing will dramatically change healthcare research, development, and operations globally. The readings, discussions, and course work will result in healthcare leaders adept in properly responding to the challenges in information technology management across a variety of healthcare organizations and knowledgeable about digital health tools such as Remote Monitoring and Predictive Analytics and their potential applications. 

Human Resources Management

Managing professionals is crucial to healthcare organizations' success (or failure) because the provision of services primarily relies on human decision-making and interaction. Healthcare professionals determine the level of quality and the costs associated with healthcare services directly or indirectly. This course aims to introduce students to the functions and issues related to managing human resources in healthcare organizations through in-class discussions and exercises demonstrating the challenges that graduates may face as healthcare executives in the future. Significant attention is given to 1) workforce issues; 2) understanding legal issues
related to the employment setting; 3) understanding the emerging use of digital technology and artificial intelligence in human resource management; 4) selection and retention of employees; 5) establishing performance standards and evaluating performance and compensation; 6) understanding the use and effects of monetary and non-monetary incentives in human resources management in the United States and globally; and 7) establishing and retaining a diverse and inclusive workforce.

Managerial and Organizational Behavior

This course is designed to give students a strong foundation in the managerial and organizational behavior issues associated with leading health systems. The course aims to build management, teamwork, and interpersonal skills that may be put into practice. Concepts from the discipline of managerial and organizational behavior (MOB) will be used as a lens to interpret and understand current health system issues. Students should complete the course with an appreciation of their context's unique organizational and
interpersonal aspects, and with the capacity to understand their unique value to solving some of our most pressing health challenges. The course is designed to allow students to reflect on and apply lessons drawn from personal leadership experience in health systems.

Strategic Management

The Strategic Management course has two primary objectives: (1) to introduce and apply analytic frameworks used in formulating and implementing strategies at the general manager level, and (2) to integrate managerial skills acquired in other courses and through personal job experiences. Students will be able to analyze complex industry and organizational situations from an executive or general
management point of view, utilizing a comprehensive strategic framework. They will be able to develop and/or identify potential alternative strategies for pursuing organizational mission and vision. Students will learn to assess the implications of strategic options, including potential for achieving competitive advantage and for effective implementation and prepare plans for executing strategies successfully within realistic economic, market, and temporal parameters. Students will be also be able to make, support analytically, and communicate clear strategic decisions from an executive leadership perspective.

Healthcare Marketing

This course will engage students in learning marketing strategy to respond to the health needs of others both strategically and tactically. The skills gained will be applicable to a spectrum of healthcare professionals, ranging from doctors, hospital administration, government officials and service providers to those at pharmaceutical and insurance companies. Key learnings include: understanding the consumer and building loyalty, market research; market segmentation; the role branding plays in marketing; developing and orchestrating integrated marketing tactics; crisis communications; and metrics. Actual cases will be utilized as part of the learning experience including a major project where students will use traditional and social marketing techniques to transform a number of current healthcare marketing campaigns.

Analytics & Managerial Decision-Making II (Required for MHA Degree)

This is a course about analytical thinking and skills for managers. Our aim is to further develop statistical skills from Analytics I, while emphasizing practical applications, translation to policy, and communicating results. We will spend the first half of the course building technical skills on fundamental and some advanced analytical methods, where each session will be a combination of teaching and practice. Next, we will apply all skills into interactive challenges (including presentation of results), where we will focus on written and visual communication of insights. We will close the class by covering the principles of survey design and analysis, plus utilizing insights for decision-making. We will develop these skills not only through directed challenges, but also through more practical examples, where only general guidance is provided, and participants will utilize their own creativity and experience.

Hospital Management (Required for MHA Degree)

The course begins with a brief overview of key concepts in leadership and management theory. The course then examines in detail areas for which hospital executives will be responsible such as optimizing hospital operations and undertaking continuous and robust process improvement through LEAN; improving the revenue cycle of hospitals and negotiating managed care contracts; driving improvements in hospital quality; and pursuing collaboration strategies.  Finally, the course will take an in-depth look at the current health care environment in which hospitals are simultaneously experiencing significant margin pressure while having to make fundamental shifts in strategy to adjust to the reform-propelled transition from volume to value based reimbursement from governmental and commercial payers.  

Strategic Issues in Healthcare Quality

This course provides an overview of healthcare quality in the US, focusing on the strategic issues facing health care executives, providers, payors and policy makers.   Students will be equipped with the vocabulary, concepts and tools to understand the complex and dynamic aspects of health care quality in today's environment, including debating the pay-for-quality movement, the cost/quality conundrum, the barriers to change and the shifts in power. Students are encouraged to take the perspective of the executive and policy-maker in class discussions.  In addition, the course surveys current ideas and methodologies in establishing and measuring quality, risk management and outcomes.