Master's in Healthcare Leadership Curriculum

This course evaluates past and current political, legal, technological, and economic healthcare policy developments and critically examines the implementation of alternative methods of health services delivery and financing within multiple global healthcare systems. Students question assumptions, think creatively, and consider integrated patient care solutions to prepare for change and new paradigms within the global healthcare sector. In addition, this course will integrate legal and regulatory decision-making as well as the structure and role of key U.S. and international regulatory bodies.

This course provides an overview of the methods and applications of therapy economics, biostatistics, and epidemiology in healthcare decision-making. Specific topics include: pharmaco-economics, decision analysis, comparative effectiveness research, and technology assessment; program evaluation; the critical review and interpretation of published epidemiological studies, institutional oversight of epidemiological research programs; and the key four steps of statistical analysis (identification of scientific programs or problems of interest, collection of the required data, analysis and summary of data, and generation of a conclusion). In this course, students will work collaboratively to develop and implement an analytical plan that relates to their Capstone Experience. P—HCL 701; HCL 721

This course prepares students to examine and respond to both challenges and opportunities to improve health within and across populations. The course explores the ethical issues confronted by most organizations and how to approach ethical decision making. In this course, students will: (1) Identify determinants of population health that impact health outcomes in a community and apply the essentials of public health practice to design low cost interventions; (2) Lead the formation and management of contemporary health care systems that consist of, and rely upon, diverse stakeholders in the organization and delivery of community-based models of care; (3) Communicate effectively to constituencies both within and outside of the health system; (4) Articulate and apply frameworks for collecting, analyzing, and using data to inform decisions, facilitate care coordination, and improve health outcomes of targeted populations within and outside the health system; and (5) Develop effective collaboratives and support state and local public health. P—HCL 701; HCL 721

This Healthcare Leadership Journal Club: Refining Yourself as an Organizational Leader course will be conducted longitudinally throughout the program. The primary course focus is on the role of the students as current and future transformational leaders, and understanding and development of the skills required for these roles. It will incorporate attribute analysis and development to move beyond being positional leaders, focusing on many of the foundational attributes of successful leaders and the future projections of healthcare. This course will incorporate select readings on impactful leadership topics, integrated activities applying these topics and open discussion of each content application to the healthcare sector. P—HCL 701; HCL 721

This course focuses on the foundations of effective healthcare leadership seen through numerous examples of successes and failures and the unique insights gleaned through these endeavors. This course challenges learners to not only acknowledge their own leadership approach, but provide opportunities to analyze the attributes that led to the respective outcomes demonstrated. Topics include analysis of various healthcare business cases of various success, preparing analysis of respective cases, and constructing assessments and interventions. P—HCL 701; HCL 721

This course is focused on the role of students as leaders in their current or future healthcare organizations. During the online course launch week, leadership essential skills workshops will be provided to enhance the leadership capacity of each student. This will serve as the foundation for developing and refining leadership characteristics and techniques. The workshops will parallel journal-club readings on topics such as conflict management, resiliency, effective communication, organizational culture, diversity, and inclusion. The workshops will also include self-assessment testing. Students will explore the meaning of value creation in healthcare organizations –– how it relates to high performance, how it varies and is measured in different healthcare segments, and how it is embodied in the structure and performance of their own organizations. P—HCL 701; HCL 721

This course is focused on the role of students as leaders in their current or future healthcare organizations. During the on-site residency experience, leadership essential skills workshops will be provided to enhance the leadership capacity of each student. This will serve as the foundation for developing and refining leadership characteristics and techniques. The workshops will parallel journal-club readings on topics such as conflict management, resiliency, effective communication, organizational culture, diversity, and inclusion. The workshops will also include self-assessment testing. Students will explore the meaning of value creation in healthcare organizations –– how it relates to high performance, how it varies and is measured in different healthcare segments, and how it is embodied in the structure and performance of their own organizations. P—HCL 701; HCL 713; HCL 721

This course examines principles and applications of strategic management and the change management applied to healthcare organizations. A structured approach to the strategic management process is explored, including methods for assessing key features of organization environments and competitive situations, approaches for developing where to engage in healthcare services and how to offer them, and processes for ensuring successful strategy implementation. The course will also foster the ability to integrate strategic concepts into actionable, forward-focused steps and apply principles to a variety of business models. Additional topics include basic economics; demand management; concepts of efficiency, production, and distribution of healthcare services; impact of regulation and reimbursement; and economic incentives in healthcare.

This course explores the quality improvement drivers, principles, systems, and tools that help create a healthcare learning organization and includes topics on performance measurement and safety and the development of high-reliability organizations optimizing variation reduction, and efficiency. Additional topics include how quality improvement creates value; how to demonstrate the value of quality improvement to their colleagues; and how to ultimately develop a culture of learning within their organization. Students compare the learning needs of healthcare organizations to those in other industries, design and implement a quality improvement project within their own organization, and develop a “learning organization roadmap” for their organization. P—HCL 701; HCL 721

This course focuses on the area of financial management as applied to healthcare organizations. The course’s emphasis is to apply the principles and concepts of health financial management to health providers that represent innovative new structures and organizations, such as Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) offering integrated patient care. Students will gain competency in the application of financial analysis tools and techniques internationally through a case study approach. The financial tools and techniques covered include: (1) working capital management and cash budgeting; (2) break- even analysis and contribution margin analysis using “what-if ” scenarios; (3) pricing analysis techniques under different competitive conditions; (4) financial condition analysis using financial statements from international healthcare companies; (5) capital budgeting and cost of capital analysis techniques; (6) return on investment analysis techniques as applied to global healthcare investment ventures; and (7) financial forecasting of future cash flows. P—HCL 701; HCL 721

In this course, students develop several essential marketing and customer-related skills, specifically in branding, product and services design, channel selection, pricing, and positioning. This course will include how to use data to make decisions. Other topics include how to dissect marketing plans and exploration of approaches to healthcare customers and consumers. P—HCL 701; HCL 721

This course examines the common failures around healthcare operations and introduces a framework to analyze current and future states and integrate emerging technologies with a global mindset. Topics include analysis of various operational challenges common in healthcare organizations today and developing a skillset to analyze, devise, implement, monitor and refine approaches to address those challenges. P—HCL 701; HCL 721

The Capstone Experience course is an independent or group project that spans the duration of the Healthcare Leadership graduate program. In this course, students identify a critical challenge related to healthcare and work collaboratively with a variety of people including their HCLs peers, professional colleagues, course faculty, advisors, and chairs, integrating various perspectives across healthcare sectors to develop possible solutions to his or her challenge. Students draw upon knowledge and skills from their coursework with an emphasis on collaborating across healthcare sectors, considering strategic and ethical implications, communicating effectively, and developing feasible, viable, and transformative solutions. P—HCL 701; HCL 721