Curriculum

This course is designed as a comprehensive introduction to the organization of the U.S. healthcare system. It examines the major institutions, professions, and political forces that influence the provision of healthcare services in the United States. The course explores the development of each major component of the medical care system from a historical perspective by examining the changes in their organization and role over time. The course also covers the major problems presently confronting each aspect of healthcare along with discussions about alternative means of resolving those issues for the future. Additionally, the course serves as a means to provide students with a broad understanding of the concepts and language requisite for many of the subsequent courses in the MHA program.

This course is intended to provide an overview of the subject of accounting. Students will learn financial and managerial accounting concepts with an emphasis on contemporary management control theory as applied in the health services industry. The course begins with the characteristics of the management control function. It then examines the nature and purpose of financial statements and introduces fund accounting. The course concludes with coverage of full cost accounting, the measurement and use of differential costs, and pricing decisions.

This course provides a comprehensive overview of selected research and quantitative methods used in conducting health services research. The course addresses all phases of the research process, from generating research questions and hypotheses, to study design, sampling, measurement, data collection, and data analyses. Proper use of statistical methods and computer applications for secondary data analysis is also covered.

This course surveys the activities and decision-making functions of the human resources manager, including personnel planning, recruitment, interviewing, training and development, compensation practices, benefits administration, maintaining personnel records, employee communication, labor relations and succession planning, with an emphasis on the legal dimensions of these various activities. Attention is also drawn to the professional and legal responsibilities of the individual manager or team leader in matters such as employee rights, privacy, and sexual harassment, discrimination in the workplace, employee evaluations, workers compensation and recruitment of personnel.

This course provides a survey of marketing concepts as applied to health services organizations.  An examination of marketing strategies useful in the delivery of healthcare services is provided to students. Special attention will be given to market research, pricing, targeting a market, branding, new product development, innovation and the development of a complete marketing plan. The course will also examine strategic planning processes and issues with an emphasis on environmental scanning, competitive analysis, strategic decision-making, and implementation in healthcare settings. Additional topics include ethical concerns in development and implementation of marketing and strategic plan.

This course is designed as an in-depth study of how the framework of economics can be applied to healthcare markets. The course will study the production, cost, and financing of healthcare services, delivery mechanisms and their effects, private and social insurance programs, and use of economic evaluation techniques in making decisions about allocation of scarce resources. The course also introduces current major issues in health policy, including managed care, public health, Medicare and Medicaid, disparate healthcare issues, global health issues.

This course is aimed to introduce practical knowledge of legal and ethical issues inherent in healthcare delivery and administration. Topics will include the U.S. legal system, legal and regulatory ground of managing healthcare organizations, the basic of ethical theory and analysis, issues regarding informed consent to and refusal of treatment, the use and disclosure of health information, fraud and abuse.

This course explores the theory, technical requirements and applications of information systems in the healthcare field. Special emphasis will be given on clinical data, electronic health records, legal and ethical aspects of health information, coding, decision support systems, managing risks and policy implications of health information technology. Also to be explored are the SDLC within the SAAD framework, information security and confidentiality, RHIOs, telemedicine and health surveillance within the public health sector.

This course is designed to increase analytical and decision-making skills using finance theories, principles, concepts, and techniques most important to managers in the healthcare industry. In addition to basic finance and accounting concepts, topics covered include the concepts of health insurance and third party reimbursement, cost concepts and decision analysis, budgeting requirements, long-term financing, capital budgeting and risk, and financial and operating analyses. The course will integrate corporate finance and accounting theories, institutional knowledge of healthcare finance, and applications to specific real-world problems.

This course will introduce the application of operations research/management science and industrial engineering techniques to healthcare organizations. The course focuses on the use of quantitative methods to address complex operational issues and realistic problems, with the ultimate goal of ensuring improved quality of care. The quantitative approach to decision making is balanced with discussions of qualitative issues in decision making such as the role of ethics, values, beliefs, power, and other aspects of decision-making.

This course focuses on a value-added and process-centered method of goal attainment.  Topics will include leadership theories, culture, human resources management, contingency and transformational theories, communication skills, conflict management, mentorship, team building and change management.

This course is designed as a culminating experience for students, requiring that they connect and apply theories, concepts, and techniques mastered throughout the MHA program to important real-world situations. The course will provide students with a structured opportunity to demonstrate mastery of content; initiative, ability to integrate concepts and skills in a cohesive project; and leadership and management skills.

This course explores how to design, develop, adopt and apply IT-based innovations in healthcare delivery and public health, and how to collect and organize data within a database, and how to import, store, analyze and visualize data to convert actionable information for decision-makers. Students will learn Access and SQL to then develop databases and queries based on healthcare scenarios.

This course introduces the basic concepts, principles, methods, implementation techniques, and applications of data mining and predictive modeling to discover a new piece of information proactively. Students will learn Python and Hadoop to then make data-driven decisions based on healthcare scenarios. In addition, business intelligence models and frameworks will be employed such as complex event processing and process mining.

This course explores how the healthcare laws and regulations serve as a framework for healthcare compliance in various healthcare settings.  Students will become familiar with federal and state regulations relating to healthcare entity operations, as well as laws relating to billing, fraud, and abuse.  Student will understand the roles and responsibilities of the healthcare compliance officer, learn how to develop and implement an effective compliance program, and use case studies to practice policy drafting, education and training program development.

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the healthcare litigation process, including the filing of the complaint, responding to the complaint, discovery, trial, appeal, and collection. Students will learn how to develop healthcare contracts, and define the nature of the physician-patient relationship within those contracts.  Students will have an opportunity to apply the major theories of liability in cases involving healthcare organizations, including respondent superior, informed consent, independent contractor status, apparent agency and direct corporate liability. Common defenses to professional liability claims will also be covered, as will important laws relating to liability insurance and peer review.  The course will also introduce best practices to reduce the risk of policy, regulatory or legal violations, as well as best practices to address potential and or actual violations.

With the rapid changes in healthcare delivery systems, an appreciation and specialized understanding of epidemiology is a necessary requirement for healthcare administrators. This course is an in-depth study of how to apply epidemiological concepts and methods to the typical functions a management utilizes to identify and address the planning, organization, and management of health services.  Topics will include the concepts of health, illness, and disease and their operational measures, biostatistical applications, and epidemiological methods used to identify health problems along with health policy implications. The course will emphasize the use of epidemiological methods in population-based medicine and managerial decision making which is necessary in the delivery of cost-effective, high-quality, health services.

This course explores major issues in health promotion and disease prevention.  There will be considerable discussion regarding the development, implementation and evaluation of health education programs. Health education and health promotional strategies will be outlined in addition to various case studies of several health communication programs.