Health Systems Management Certificate

This course looks at the various financing mechanisms which impact the structure and delivery of health care in the United States with particular emphasis upon governmental financing, managed care, employer sponsored health plans, and emerging insurance models. The course examines the impact of these financing mechanisms upon diverse health delivery systems including acute care, medical practice organizations, long term care, and the pharmaceutical and medical devices sector.

Today’s healthcare organizations are under intense regulatory and financial pressures to improve quality, efficiency, patient safety, patient satisfaction, and positive outcomes. This course is concerned with the study of how descriptive, diagnostics, predictive, and prescriptive analytics tools and techniques can impact the overall performance of healthcare organizations. Students learn to extract, collect, analyze, visualize, and interpret data from patient health records, insurance claims, financial records, and tell a compelling and actionable story. Class exercises enable students to understand ways to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare organizations.

This course provides students with a comprehensive macro approach to health delivery systems and the competencies required to manage this transforming industry. Students will examine current and future health utilization trends from the perspective of the provider, consumer, insurer and regulator. Particular attention will be given to how these stakeholders impact the role of the manager in a health systems organization. The course will examine the relative strengths and weaknesses of our current system compared to other nations. We will explore the delivery of health services associated with population and public health and how behavior influences the provision of these services. The course will highlight the logistics of the health care system, its organization, workforce makeup, finances, its cost and related value, and how technology and information systems impact the industry. The course will also provide an overview of the future of health care delivery in the United States and health care policy.