3.00
This course presents an overview of the origins, components, organization, and operation of the health system in the United States. It is an introduction to the major health issues and institutions, including the settings in which health services are delivered, providers of these services, and the public and private payers for services.
1.50
Reviews global health needs, including those related to infectious and chronic diseases, injuries, behavioral health, women, children, and families, and complex emergencies such as natural disasters and war. Case studies stimulate discussion of ways to address these needs. Student papers identify needs and evaluate healthcare organization and financing in selected countries.
Take HLTH-301 and HLTH-440;
1.50
This course builds on HLTH 440 with a review of global health systems and organizations. In class and student issue papers, the course covers critical health-related policy issues such as world trade, poverty, population growth, the nutritional crisis, the water wars, and environmental issues/global climate change. The course closes by examining the challenges of how to prioritize scarce resources and mobilize together to save civilization.
1.00
This course is required for all MHA students. Its primary goal is to focus students on their career development. The course provides an orientation to Suffolks MHA Program and the Universitys resources, along with guidance for getting the most from the MHA Program and the students time at Suffolk. It introduces students to the healthcare industry in Massachusetts and identifies opportunities for student involvement in selected healthcare organizations. The course highlights how to build essential skills in written and verbal communication, critical and strategic thinking, resume development, and professional networking. Finally, it enables each student to conduct in-depth planning for his or her career as a healthcare professional. After becoming familiar with the range of competencies put forth by the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) and the National Center for Healthcare Leadership (NCHL), each student develops a Personal Roadmap for Professional Development that incorporates selected competencies. The roadmap is a guide for the students learning and development as a healthcare manager in the years ahead.
MBA Health
3.00
This course presents an overview of the origins, components, organization, and operation of the health system in the United States. It is an introduction to the major health issues and institutions, including the settings in which health services are delivered, providers of these services, and the public and private payers for services.
MBA Health
HLTH-701;
3.00
This course provides a framework for understanding the economics of the U.S. healthcare industry. The industry is experiencing great pressure to reduce costs, even as it strives to do better at both improving the health of the population and engaging patients in their care. This course enables students to apply the perspectives and tools of health economics to the tasks of understanding and improving the business of healthcare. Students analyze and evaluate current and evolving healthcare markets, public policies, payment methods, mechanisms for bearing and sharing financial risk, and the economic impact of changes in technology and the health professions. Students participate in envisioning the future and designing better ways for healthcare leaders, managers and policy makers to meet the challenges facing the industry.
MBA Health
3.00
Innovations in technology, products, practices, and organization are continually re-shaping healthcare. In fact, innovation in healthcare will be a constant into the distant future. The outcomes of healthcare innovation will evolve over time, as will the processes through which innovation is developed and then adopted by healthcare providers and consumers. For these reasons, every healthcare leader and manager must understand the causes and effects of innovation as well as how to successfully initiate and manage innovation. The primary purpose of this course is to build students skills as both thinkers and doers, helping them to better anticipate, work with, and lead innovation in healthcare. The course covers innovation in the organization and delivery of healthcare services as well as in the development and use of nanotechnology, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices, and healthcare information technology. In particular, the course explores how innovation happens -- i.e., how players across the healthcare industry create, identify, pursue, and support or impede opportunities for innovation. Those players include university researchers, medical products and technology companies, healthcare professionals and delivery organizations, and government agencies. The course also examines selected current healthcare innovations and trends as well as innovations that are expected in the future. This will enable students to become better futurists who can anticipate innovation and its implications for healthcare and, as a result, position themselves as effective leaders, managers and consumers of innovation.
MBA Health
3.00
This course provides an overview of healthcare management. Students develop knowledge and skills required for effective management of organizations that deliver high quality, patient-centered, cost-effective care. The course examines forces that are shaping healthcare organizations and draws on management theory and practice to explore a wide range of topics, including: governance and control; strategy; organizational structure, tasks and positions; culture and ethics; leadership and motivation; communication: planning; decision making and problem solving; recruiting and retaining human resources; teamwork; cultural competence and diversity management; managing people and performance in clinical and support services; and organizational change.
MBA Health
3.00
This course covers both qualitative and quantitative research methods, with a strong focus on applied healthcare management research. Course topics include scientific reasoning, research design, action research methods, qualitative research methods, fundamental statistical techniques, and display and presentation of quantitative and qualitative analyses. This course prepares students as both producers and consumers of healthcare related research. Students will: Learn fundamentals of scientific reasoning, research design, and action research methods. Gain basic skills in both qualitative and quantitative data collection, analysis and presentation. Understand the meaning and appropriate application of basic statistical techniques relevant to healthcare management. Become prepared to analyze and draw conclusions from surveys, program evaluations, and operations data. Be able to troubleshoot the work of consultants and be critical consumers of research performed by others.
MBA Health
3.00
The growing healthcare field is the most labor intensive employer in the United States. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the theories, requirements and practices associated with managing human resources in healthcare organizations. The course covers both strategic and operational aspects of human resources planning and management, and it devotes particular attention to the issues that make human resources management in healthcare so challenging. Perhaps most important, the course guides students in developing practical knowledge and skills to prepare them- as healthcare leaders and managers- to successfully address human resource issues. The course will draw from a range of theoretical material and practical situations, using a variety of learning approaches and featuring guest speakers from healthcare organizations who share their experiences and perspectives from the field of human resources. The course focuses on the following topics: The changing healthcare environment and its implications for human resources management, the use of strategic human resource management to gain a competitive edge in the healthcare industry, workforce design, legal and regulatory requirements, recruitment and retention, organizational development, performance management, compensation and benefits, managing with organized labor. and creating customer satisfying healthcare organizations.
HLTH-701;
1.50
This course serves as an introduction to the financial accounting of healthcare organizations. Understanding the important principles of a healthcare organizationss income statement and balance sheet is the essence of this course. Focused attention will be given to the interpretation and analysis of financial statements including the implications of assuming risk in an era of managed care.
MBA Health
HLTH-701;
3.00
Students investigate the structural and functional aspects of the legal, institutional, and political factors that condition the character of the US healthcare industry, the role of the healthcare manager, the legislative process, administrative policy-making, and national trends related to political parties and interest groups. Topics in healthcare law include medical malpractice, informed consent, confidentiality of patient information, healthcare liability, and administrative law.
MBA Health
HLTH-701;
1.50
This course serves as an introduction to the financial management of healthcare organizations. Using financial information for decision making is the essence of this course. Students will gain a perspective on the critical factors related to managing a healthcare organization in a marketplace that is demanding cost effective services. Focused attention will be given to managerial accounting, cost allocation, budgeting, and variance analysis.
MBA Health
Take HLTH-701 HLTH-824 HLTH-826;
3.00
In our complex and ever-changing healthcare industry, leaders and managers must understand the financial drivers that are shaping the strategic planning and decision making at all levels of healthcare organizations. This advanced course builds on the healthcare financial management techniques introduced in HLTH 824 and HLTH 826 and is intended for students seeking to enhance their analytic and financial management skill set. Through in-depth research of a healthcare organizations financial statements, students will gain practical experience using the latest tools and analytic methodologies employed by healthcare managers. Our work will focus on financial statement analysis, benchmarking, forecasting, revenue cycle management (including the implications of capitation and pay-for-performance), and capital budgeting (including capital acquisition, lease/buy decisions, and access to capital markets). A group project, guest speakers and course readings aim to develop practical financial management skills that will enable students to make effective managerial decisions that lead to the financial success and long-term viability of their healthcare organizations.
MBA Health
HLTH 701;
1.50
Healthcare industry trends point toward increasing need for meaningful measurement of the health of populations- from the population of patients who use a particular health service to the populations of nations. Healthcare managers must measure the need and demand for health services as well as the quality, safety and effectiveness or services. This course provides the fundamental information and enables students to develop the skills to apply principles and techniques of epidemiology in planning, delivering and evaluating health services.
MBA Health
Take HLTH-701 and HLTH-812;
1.50
Students are introduced to analytic tools and techniques as queuing theory, linear programming schedule optimization, capacity planning, and inventory management all applied in the context of healthcare organizations. (MHA, MPA/Health Students only).
MBA Health
HLTH-701;
1.50
The production of health care is a service of significant personal and social consequence and high on the agenda of every healthcare executive. Todays consumer actively seeks evidence about the quality of care they can anticipate while payers are offering financial incentives to providers who can demonstrate superior patient outcomes. This seven-week course will focus on the complexities and processes of assuring quality performance in healthcare organizations.
MBA Health
3.00
Examines health policy development and implementation as well as important and cutting-edge U.S. health issues, including their policy and ethical implications. Topics may change each year, but usually include state and federal healthcare reform, access and health disparities, medical errors, healthcare quality, evidence-based practice and shared decision making, chronic illness and disabilities, behavioral health, stem cells and genetics, the consumer paradigm, emergency response management, and end-of-life issues.
MBA Health
Take HLTH-831;
3.00
The imperative to improve and assure the quality and safety of services is of paramount importance to clinical providers, managers, and executive leadership. This course builds on the basic principles, concepts, tools, and analytic methods addressed in HLTH 831. Among the topics explored in this advanced course are: creating a culture of safety; establishing and sustaining organizational alignment; quality/safety implications for accreditation and regulatory compliance; measuring and improving the patient experience; mistake-proofing the design process; and principles and strategies to improve reliability. Learner Objectives The course will provide a foundation for the learner to: 1.Compare and contrast definitions of quality from a variety of stakeholder perspectives. 2.Classify medical error and identify means to reduce risk and/or take effective corrective action. 3.Explore sensemaking and its applicability to transformational change in healthcare quality. 4.Identify leadership strategies for establishing an organization wide culture of safety. 5.Apply essential healthcare team concepts, especially collegiality and collaboration, in complex circumstances of quality improvement. 6.Define mistake-proofing and mistake-proofing approaches and design applied to patient safety. 7.Apply reliability principles to performance improvement in complex systems. 8.Complete an actual healthcare performance improvement project that involves the use of knowledge and skills acquired in the pre-requisite course HLTH 831: Performance Improvement and Patient Safety as well as this course.
MBA Health
3.00
Students review the history of the disability rights movements, disability laws, and court decisions, including housing, employment, and transportation. Recreation/sports issues and the basics of universal design also are covered.
MBA Health
Take HLTH-701;
1.50
As the healthcare industry continues to be highly competitive, and as health-related information becomes more available through television and the Internet, healthcare organizations are challenged to communicate their messages more aggressively and in new ways to their key audiences. This course enables students to learn about the nature of those audiences as well as healthcare marketing and communications, with emphasis on designing and conducting market research, identifying market segments and their unique characteristics, selecting promotional strategies and tactics for reaching target audiences, and developing marketing plans.
MBA Health
Take HLTH-701 HLTH-835;
3.00
The success of any healthcare organization depends, in large part, on its ability to communicate persuasively, efficiently and in many different ways with key internal and external constituencies. The core course, HLTH 835, introduces and explores the changing healthcare environment and the implications for healthcare marketing and communications, how to understand consumers, the marketing process and marketing mix, and how to control and monitor marketing performance. This advanced course emphasizes strategic and tactical approaches and guides students in deepening both their understanding of healthcare marketing and their skills around market analysis, marketing planning, and the promotion of healthcare services and products. This is a course for students who want to use their critical thinking skills and creativity to analyze key aspects of current reality for healthcare organizations, identify opportunities for future growth and market advantage, and develop imaginative and bold plans for achieving desired results. Key topics include: Key topics 1.Strategy development and the strategic mind-set. 2.The critical role of market-based strategy development and marketing plans in healthcare. 3.Engaging in the key steps of marketing strategy development: a. Defining mission, vision and goals as the basis for marketing. b. Conducting internal and external assessments to identify whats happening and why. c. Developing the strategy/action match. d. Determining marketing actions, product, services, distribution, pricing and promotion. e. Integrating marketing plans with key planning and operational functions in a healthcare organization. f. Establishing an approval process, including guidelines for selecting among alternative marketing plans based on projected return on equity, margin, volume of sales, and return on sales. g. Establishing a monitoring and evaluation process based on such metrics as awareness and preference, organization and service image, referral sou
MBA Health
Take HLTH-701;
1.50
Healthcare is among the most complex and dynamic industries in the United States. It is characterized by: changing demographics, health conditions and consumer wants and needs; continuous innovation in programs, services, treatments, technology and delivery systems; increasing complexity of care; intense competition among some providers, and mergers and affiliations among others; increasing shortages of key personnel; rising costs; mounting pressure to deliver quality care and manage costs; changing laws, regulations and payment systems; 47 million Americans without health insurance, resulting in disparate levels of service accessibility and quality; and a growing movement to make health insurance available and affordable for more Americans. In such an environment of challenge and change, healthcare leaders and managers must be able to understand current reality, anticipate the future, and continuously design and implement change. Healthcare organizations must be change-able (i.e., equipped with the orientation, skills and approaches to manage change across a wide range of leadership, management and service delivery dimensions). Accordingly, this course enables students to: (1) examine key external and internal forces for change that face healthcare organizations, and (2) begin to develop the orientation and skills to envision, design, lead, and implement change in healthcare organizations. Drawing on theory and case studies of organizational change, the course covers such topics as: the nature of organizational change; why the ability to create desired change is so important; key external and internal factors that require healthcare organizations to change; aspects of healthcare organizations that support and resist change; designing and implementing successful and lasting change; sources of greatest leverage for achieving desired change; and key requirements for success.
MBA Health
HLTH-701;
1.50
Reviews global health needs, including those related to infectious and chronic diseases, injuries, behavioral health, women, children, and families, and complex emergencies such as natural disasters and war. Case studies stimulate discussion of ways to address these needs. Student papers identify needs and evaluate healthcare organization and financing in selected countries.
MBA International Business,MBA Health
Take HLTH-701 and HLTH-840;
1.50
Builds on HLTH 840 with a review of global health systems and organizations. In class and student issue papers, the course covers critical health-related policy issues such as world trade, poverty, population growth, the nutritional crisis, the water wars, and environmental issues/global climate change. The course closes by examining the challenges of how to prioritize scarce resources and mobilize together to save civilization.
MBA International Business,MBA Health
HLTH-701;
1.50
This course covers health information and a range of healthcare IT applications as well as topics related to IT planning and management. Applications include medical records, order entry, decision support, and emerging applications. Planning and management topics include data security, IT cost, systems interoperability, project management, IT implementation, and governance.
MBA Health
Take HLTH-701;
3.00
This course introduces the healthcare student to concepts and managerial views of business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and leadership practice as applied to organizational settings in healthcare. (Prerequisite Health Systems I).
MBA Health
Take HLTH-701;
3.00
This is a student-initiated directed study project. The student and faculty advisor must concur on a written proposal and final report, and the project must be approved by the dean of academic affairs prior to registration.
MBA Health
Take HLTH-701;
0.00- 3.00
The internship enables students to learn about important aspects of healthcare by working in a healthcare organization. It is intended for students who do not have professional experience in the U.S. healthcare system as well as students who already work in healthcare and seek to gain exposure to other areas of the system. For all students, the internship provides networking opportunities for future career development. The internship requires each student to: work with a healthcare faculty member to identify opportunities and secure an internship in a healthcare organization; complete 300 hours of supervised work in that healthcare organization; attend seminars to examine relevant aspects of the internship; and report on the lessons learned from the internship and how they could be applied in the students future professional.
MBA Health
This course is the capstone of the MHA Program and should be taken in the last semester of coursework.
3.00
The success of any healthcare organization depends on the ability of its leaders and managers to continuously identify, evaluate and address the key issues and challenges facing the organization. This capstone course for Healthcare explores the essential elements of strategic management: the foundation (including Systems Thinking), strategic analysis, and strategy development and implementation. Using provocative case studies from healthcare and other fields, students conduct sophisticated internal assessments of organizational strengths and weaknesses as well as external assessments of opportunities and threats/challenges, identify strategic and operational issues, and develop strategies and action steps to address the issues. For the final project, each student develops a strategic plan for a healthcare organization or conducts a research project on a healthcare organization or strategic issue of particular interest (e.g., the nursing shortage). Fundamentally, this course focuses on applying strategic and systemic thinking in diagnosing organizational circumstances and developing strategies for what to do next. This course is the capstone of the MHA Program and should be taken in the last semester of coursework.
MBA Health
HLTH 831
3.00
The imperative to improve and assure the quality and safety of services is of paramount importance to clinical providers, managers, and executive leadership. This course builds on the basic principles, concepts, tools, and analytic methods addressed in HLTH 831. Among the topics explored in this advanced course are: creating a culture of safety; establishing and sustaining organizational alignment; quality/safety implications for accreditation and regulatory compliance; measuring and improving the patient experience; mistake-proofing the design process; and principles and strategies to improve reliability. Learner Objectives The course will provide a foundation for the learner to: 1.Compare and contrast definitions of quality from a variety of stakeholder perspectives. 2.Classify medical error and identify means to reduce risk and/or take effective corrective action. 3.Explore sensemaking and its applicability to transformational change in healthcare quality. 4.Identify leadership strategies for establishing an organization wide culture of safety. 5.Apply essential healthcare team concepts, especially collegiality and collaboration, in complex circumstances of quality improvement. 6.Define mistake-proofing and mistake-proofing approaches and design applied to patient safety. 7.Apply reliability principles to performance improvement in complex systems. 8.Complete an actual healthcare performance improvement project that involves the use of knowledge and skills acquired in the pre-requisite course HLTH 831: Performance Improvement and Patient Safety as well as this course.
MBA Health
3.00
Innovations in technology, products, practices, and organization are continually re-shaping healthcare. In fact, innovation in healthcare will be a constant into the distant future. The outcomes of healthcare innovation will evolve over time, as will the processes through which innovation is developed and then adopted by healthcare providers and consumers. For these reasons, every healthcare leader and manager must understand the causes and effects of innovation as well as how to successfully initiate and manage innovation. The primary purpose of this course is to build students skills as both thinkers and doers, helping them to better anticipate, work with, and lead innovation in healthcare. The course covers innovation in the organization and delivery of healthcare services as well as in the development and use of nanotechnology, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices, and healthcare information technology. In particular, the course explores how innovation happens -- i.e., how players across the healthcare industry create, identify, pursue, and support or impede opportunities for innovation. Those players include university researchers, medical products and technology companies, healthcare professionals and delivery organizations, and government agencies. The course also examines selected current healthcare innovations and trends as well as innovations that are expected in the future. This will enable students to become better futurists who can anticipate innovation and its implications for healthcare and, as a result, position themselves as effective leaders, managers and consumers of innovation.
MBA Health
3.00
This course provides a framework for understanding, diagnosing, and acting to improve individual, group, and system-wide effectiveness in health services organizations. The conceptual framework is derived from organizational behavior research and applied to health services organizations. Topics this course addresses and integrates include: organizational structure, governance and control; communication; leadership and motivation; conflict and interpersonal relations; power and politics; organizational culture; and organizational change. Case studies, brief lectures, student presentations, and experiential exercises are used throughout the course.
MBA Health
HLTH 701
3.00
This is a student-initiated directed study project. The student and faculty advisor must concur on a written proposal and final report, and the project must be approved by the dean of academic affairs prior to registration.
MBA Health
HLTH 701
3.00
The internship enables students to learn about important aspects of healthcare by working in a healthcare organization. It is intended for students who do not have professional experience in the U.S. healthcare system as well as students who already work in healthcare and seek to gain exposure to other areas of the system. For all students, the internship provides networking opportunities for future career development. The internship requires each student to: work with a healthcare faculty member to identify opportunities and secure an internship in a healthcare organization; complete 300 hours of supervised work in that healthcare organization; attend seminars to examine relevant aspects of the internship; and report on the lessons learned from the internship and how they could be applied in the students future professional.
MBA Health
3.00
This course covers both qualitative and quantitative research methods, with a strong focus on applied healthcare management research. Course topics include scientific reasoning, research design, action research methods, qualitative research methods, fundamental statistical techniques, and display and presentation of quantitative and qualitative analyses. This course prepares students as both producers and consumers of healthcare related research. Students will: Learn fundamentals of scientific reasoning, research design, and action research methods. Gain basic skills in both qualitative and quantitative data collection, analysis and presentation. Understand the meaning and appropriate application of basic statistical techniques relevant to healthcare management. Become prepared to analyze and draw conclusions from surveys, program evaluations, and operations data. Be able to troubleshoot the work of consultants and be critical consumers of research performed by others.
MBA Health
3.00
The growing healthcare field is the most labor intensive employer in the United States. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the theories, requirements and practices associated with managing human resources in healthcare organizations. The course covers both strategic and operational aspects of human resources planning and management, and it devotes particular attention to the issues that make human resources management in healthcare so challenging. Perhaps most important, the course guides students in developing practical knowledge and skills to prepare them- as healthcare leaders and managers- to successfully address human resource issues. The course will draw from a range of theoretical material and practical situations, using a variety of learning approaches and featuring guest speakers from healthcare organizations who share their experiences and perspectives from the field of human resources. The course focuses on the following topics: The changing healthcare environment and its implications for human resources management, the use of strategic human resource management to gain a competitive edge in the healthcare industry, workforce design, legal and regulatory requirements, recruitment and retention, organizational development, performance management, compensation and benefits, managing with organized labor. and creating customer satisfying healthcare organizations.