This course equips students with the critical thinking and problem-solving skills essential for successful healthcare leadership. Grounded in the Problem-Solving Method, students will systematically analyze complex management challenges, distinguish facts from opinions, and avoid rushing to premature solutions. Through practical exercises, students will develop skills for effective team collaboration, including creating group charters, managing workflows, and fostering individual and team growth. The course also emphasizes persuasive reasoning and strong interpersonal communication, enabling students to build stakeholder consensus for addressing shared challenges. By the end of the course, students will craft actionable, evidence-based recommendations with measurable milestones, ensuring sustainable solutions to healthcare management issues.

Health Policy, Regulation, and Advocacy introduces students to the institutions, processes, and actors that shape U.S. health policymaking. The course examines how problems are defined, agendas set, and policies crafted, enacted, and implemented through legislative and regulatory channels. Emphasis is placed on the roles of Congress, administrative agencies, courts, interest groups, and grassroots organizations in shaping policy outcomes. Students will also develop practical skills in advocacy, including coalition-building, stakeholder analysis, and communication strategies. Through case studies and simulations, students connect theory to practice and engage with contemporary issues in public health and healthcare. This course provides a foundation for advanced policy analysis and prepares students to participate effectively in the policy process.

This course introduces students to the development, structure, operation, and future direction of the U.S. health care system. The primary topics include public health activity and health care delivery systems, the factors that determine allocation of health care resources, and the relationship of health care costs to benefits. Students learn to assess organized efforts to influence health delivery and policy formulation, the impact of these efforts on leaders of health care organizations, and the role of societal values and individual behaviors on health system performance, reform efforts, and the health status of our population.

This course prepares students to lead organizational improvement initiatives by integrating foundational principles of quality improvement, project management, and Lean Six Sigma into a cohesive framework for healthcare operations. Students will develop the skills to analyze resource utilization, optimize processes, and manage projects that drive efficiency and enhance patient outcomes. Emphasizing practical application, the course introduces tools and techniques for continuous process improvement, project planning and execution, and change management. Through case studies, experiential learning, and team-based projects, students will learn to lead cross-functional teams, design improvement strategies, and implement solutions in complex healthcare environments. Topics include quality measurement systems, Lean Six Sigma methodologies, process mapping, resource optimization, stakeholder engagement, and project management tools such as work breakdown structures and Gantt charts.

In the health care system, vast amounts of diagnostic, procedural, pharmacy, administrative, and financial data are continuously generated and collated. To ensure financial health, operational efficiency, and high-quality care, it is essential for stakeholders to transform this data into actionable insights that support informed decision-making. This introductory graduate-level course equips students with the skills to utilize industry-standard analytical tools, with a focus on Microsoft Excel©, to analyze and interpret large-scale institutional data commonly encountered in health care. Through practical applications and hands-on exercises, students will learn to convert complex data sets into meaningful information that drives strategic decisions and enhances organizational performance.

In the evolving landscape of health administration, data-driven decision-making is paramount. HPAM 6300 is an advanced applied analytics course designed to equip students with the expertise to analyze, visualize, and communicate critical health data effectively. Emphasizing best practices in data visualization and storytelling, this course builds on the analytical foundations established in HPAM 6200. Students will master the creation of key performance indicators (KPIs) and develop dynamic dashboards to monitor and enhance organizational performance. Through practical case studies and hands-on experience with leading data visualization tools, including Microsoft Excel and Tableau, students will refine their ability to present data in a compelling and actionable manner, ultimately informing and influencing key stakeholders in the health sector.

The purpose of HPAM 6320 – Managerial Communications is to develop the written and oral communication skills that students will need as leaders to accomplish organizational objectives. To function effectively in complex professional environments, leaders must understand and use different communication behaviors and strategies. Students will strengthen interpersonal communication skills by sharing and receiving feedback and learn how to navigate conflict and other difficult conversations. This course will provide both underlying concepts and skill-building exercises to allow students to develop, improve, and perfect their communication skills.

This course introduces key financial management fundamentals and practices with healthcare organizations. Emphasis is placed on equipping students with the basic skills to manage financial resources effectively, setting the stage for more advanced topics and applications. Key topics include how money flows through healthcare systems, exploring essential financial tools such as breakeven analysis and variance analysis, and gain a solid grasp of budgeting and interpreting financial statements. The course assumes students have no prior study or experience in finance.

This course examines the U.S. health insurance system through the lenses of its key stakeholders: patients, providers, payers, and the public. Students will explore how economic forces, payment mechanisms, and policy decisions shape healthcare delivery, access, and outcomes. Topics include the evolution of payment systems, mechanisms for institutional and ambulatory care reimbursement, and the regulatory processes influencing public-sector programs. Emphasis is placed on analyzing stakeholder behavior in response to incentives, evaluating the trade-offs between cost, quality, and equity, and interpreting provider strategies under varied payment models. Through critical thinking and quantitative analysis, students will gain the tools to assess current systems and anticipate future challenges in a rapidly changing healthcare landscape.

This course encompasses a body of knowledge, a set of quantitative skills, and an orientation towards managerial situations which provide managers greater insight and analytic opportunities for improving the managerial process.  Focuses on the systematic planning, direction, and control of the organizational processes that turn resources such as labor, equipment, and materials into services and the quantitative analysis that supports these decisions.  In this environment, the processes involve allocation, scheduling, and procedural decisions that result in the effective and efficient utilization of resources for the delivery of health care services.

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to health market analysis, emphasizing strategic planning and market research to inform data-driven decision-making and operational improvement. Students will explore key topics such as market definition, segmentation, branding, and customer loyalty, alongside advanced strategies for product development, network growth, and organizational consolidation. Through environmental scanning, competitor analysis, and forecasting, students will gain insight into the evolving U.S. healthcare landscape and its challenges. Practical applications include analyzing cases and developing actionable market development strategies tailored to integrated healthcare delivery systems.

This course equips students with the knowledge and skills to lead effectively in dynamic healthcare environments. Students will explore strategies for influencing and inspiring teams, fostering collaboration, and promoting workforce well-being. By the end of the course, students will have developed their ability to lead with integrity, communicate effectively, and navigate complex interpersonal and organizational challenges in healthcare settings.

Within the context that the healthcare ecosystem is undergoing a profound transformation towards a new consumer-driven market, often with increasingly constrained resources, this course offers students an open learning and design space to foster positive healthcare businesses through human-cantered design of the work of care, while improving patient experience, health outcomes, workforce engagement, and revenue. This leadership focus is on successfully reaching key performance metrics and goals through innovation and improvement, while restoring humanity to healthcare.

This course is designed to provide current and emerging physician leaders the knowledge, skills, abilities, and personal mastery tools, which are requisite to assuming leadership roles in the delivery of health services in the consumer-driven healthcare market. By grounding fundamental principles of individual, team, and organizational learning in experiential activities, simulations, and hands-on learn-by-doing exercises, this course will enhance the student’s mastery of the core competencies: assessment of current reality, creation of shared vision and purpose, understanding systems and complexity, teaching and learning, design thinking, dialogue, authenticity and personal mastery, positive-relationships and culture, innovation, and organizational transformation.

This course offers physician leaders an introduction to strategic thinking within a business planning framework using a case-based and experience based analysis of environmental trends, business models and payment systems. The course helps the student understand and prepare for the continuously changing health care business environment in the US and prepares the student for future strategic planning responsibilities.

This course provides current and emerging healthcare leaders the knowledge, skills, and personal mastery of tools necessary for using human conversation and connection to navigate and positively impact complex systems, structures, and cultures of healthcare organizations. Students in this course will continue their leadership development journey by enhancing skills that allow for stronger relationships with all people present in health and healthcare organizations in order to create and sustain a positive, high-performance culture. By grounding fundamental principles of individual, team, and organizational conversation in experiential activities, simulations, and real-time feedback, this course will enhance each student’s mastery of core competencies in relational communication and professionalism—habits for fostering positive human connection, inquiry, skillful discussion, shared sense-making, empathy, and cultural transformation.

This course explores selected principles of financial accounting, managerial accounting and applied micro-economics (managerial finance) in nonprofit health care delivery organizations. The course focuses on learning and applying key tools and concepts to problems faced by clinicians and administrators. Topics include, but are not limited to: financial statement structure and analysis, cost concepts used in budgeting, approaches to resource allocation including incremental/marginal analysis, assessing economic viability using cost of capital concepts and adjusting for project risk.

This course introduces students to various aspects (epidemiology, social, economic, cultural) of China's healthcare system. The course will be delivered in China so that the materials learned in the classroom can be observed in the real world through field visits and field observations. Health reform strategies of China in recent years will be critically examined through directed readings, seminar lectures, and a number of sites including primary care centers, tertiary hospitals, public health entities, and research organizations. Financing of health care and system for paying the providers will also be evaluated and analyzed.

This course introduces basic economic concepts and analytical tools used to address questions concerning the efficient and effective production of health and health services in the context of a market economy. The course emphasizes the application of economic tools of analysis to the management of health-related organizations and to health policy development. Students will study current research on the health care industry and the ways in which economic analysis is employed in the development of public policy on issues related to population health and healthcare.

There is a wealth of publicly available healthcare, public health, and census data in the United States that can be used for strategic planning, policy research, and advocacy. This intermediate course will teach students to analyze, synthesize, manage, interpret, and communicate these data for decision-making. Students will use publicly available data to evaluate current needs of a patient population and inform decisions on current and future policies and services. The focus will go beyond data from electronic health records and use population level data to analyze social, environmental, and economic issues that impact access to and outcomes of health care.

This course explores the legal and ethics issues encountered by health care professionals in the U.S. health care system. Topics included: basic tort principles, liability of health care professionals and organizations, government regulation of health care providers, common law and statutory duties to treat, informed consent, fraud and abuse, governance issues for health care organizations, corporate compliance, basic contract principles, tax exemption, antitrust and ethics. Students learn to recognize potential legal problems in various health care settings and identify and analyze the legal/ethical issues and rights that are implicated.

Strategic Management of Health Care Organizations builds upon numerous courses to further develop the concepts of strategic thinking, strategic planning, and strategic management; all of which are vital to successful health care organizations. The course integrates students’ previously acquired knowledge of management, marketing, organizational behavior, human resources, finance, accounting, health policy, and economics. The course also incorporates students’ understanding of the health care environment in the United States and its effects on the development of a strategic plan. This integration is accomplished through the completion of a comprehensive strategic assessment and project for a health care delivery organization.

Healthcare leaders in the new consumer-driven environment require a conversant understanding of macro, micro, and behavioral economics for successful innovations and positive-change. This course content will offer the applicable concepts of economic analysis that applies psychological insights into human behavior to explain economic decision­ making, including utility, engagement, and direct and indirect economic impact of behavioral interventions. Within this framework, key legal and policy implications will be reviewed with a focused on intrapreneurial or entrepreneurial change initiatives. In addition, the underlying relationships of current economic incentives, required transparencies, intellectual properties, compliance, and controls, as well as future economic and social trends will be reviewed.

The healthcare industry now recognizes the key quality outcomes aims – the Quadruple Aim of enhancing patient experiences and engagement, improving the health of the population, reducing costs while offering value and creating the conditions for the workforce to find joy and meaning in their work. This measurement environment requires leaders to evaluate data sets of market-referenced utilization, cost, satisfaction, and quality outcomes. Within the new consumer-driven environment, positive change metrics must be defined, measured, and included in the leaders’ new balanced scorecard. This course offers the necessary analytic methodology supported by business statistics for accountable care, utilizing quantitative tools for causality, pay for performance, quality improvement, and measures of success for innovation initiatives.

Healthcare delivery organizations are complex and often defy reductionistic models offered by much of management theory. While leadership and management training often focuses on enabling better performance through structural alignment, process control, and workforce compliance, human behaviors are the fundamental ingredient enabling positive organizational culture and outstanding performance. This course builds upon individual and team-based skills introduced in Relational Communication and Professionalism (HPAM 6950), and focuses on broader questions of organizational design through the lens of human behavior, narrative, and culture, with an emphasis on creating enabling factors (trust, distributed responsibility, shared mental models, and leverage points for systemic change). Participants will engage with new ways of seeing common systems within their own organizations and will work to redesign them.

Critical thinking skills and data-driven decisions and planning capacities are essential in the complex consumer-driven health care ecosystem. This course supports the leader’s development of decision models to predict future trends and demands, including the application of simulations determining the probability of success, as well as an analytical framework for building innovative business plans. This course has three foci. First, this course will improve physician leader’s ability to analyze complex and sophisticated decision problems and to design models of individual choice behavior, probability, and statistical decision theory. Second, this course will introduce the concepts of market analysis with emphasis on population health management. Third, this course integrates knowledge of data analytics, including statistics and epidemiology.

Students will use a suite of tools based on positive psychology, business models innovation, design thinking, high-performing teams, consumer-driven networks, and the creation and deployment of the organizational learning spiral to develop an organizational strategy plan. By introducing students to a variety of strategy and change theories and practices, with a focus on matching practice to organizational characteristics, the course builds flexibility and agility to ensure solutions are appropriate to the challenge addressed. Examining one approach more deeply, while surfacing commonalities with other models, the course provides a different lens through which to consider strategic options. The course continues to build capacity within four key design areas: consumer-driven care, inter-professional teaming, workforce wellbeing and humanizing care and services.

With the guidance and mentorship of program faculty. building on student course assignments throughout the Masters of Medical Management program, this culminating experience is based on a completed three-part management application paper. which details a proposed innovation and the creation of a positive-change intrapreneurial or entrepreneurial business plan for the prototype. This business plan includes a defined business model, applicable enabling social-change technology, plans for creation of a value network, identified consumer markets, the required inter-professional and inter-organizational collaboration, with deployment plans for iteration, ramp and scale deployment, and potential return on investment. The fully implementable business plan will be presented in an innovation competition to appropriate leaders, stakeholder and prospective investors.

This is a capstone course for the Master of Health Administration program. This course teaches design thinking principles to equip students with innovative tools for healthcare leadership and integrates those tools with current topics in health administration. Students will engage in hands-on projects to master design thinking tools and demonstrate proficiency in each of the competencies of the MHA program: leadership and influence, financial skills, analytical thinking, communication, interpersonal effectiveness, professionalism and ethics, strategic orientation, information seeking, and process management. By the end of the course, students will know how to design and lead projects in healthcare organizations that are adaptive, patient-centered, and innovative.

Strategic Management of Health Care Organizations will introduce you to strategic thinking, strategic planning and strategic management, which are vital to successful health care organizations. This course integrates students' knowledge of management.

This managerial economics course bridges and integrates basic economic and financial management concepts with practical application to improve problem-solving skills and inform effective leadership decision-making in dynamic public health and healthcare organizations. Students apply financial management analysis tools and techniques (e.g., forecasting, budgeting, time value analysis, risk analysis) through the lens of common economic principles, including scarcity and choice, risk and uncertainty, demand and supply, and incentives. The emphasis within a market-based economy considers stakeholders (e.g., public, patients, providers, policymakers) and market imperfections, such as third-party payers, regulation, principal-agent relationship, and externalities in a global context.

This course builds upon previous coursework introducing healthcare financial management to prepare students for success in future leadership roles through practical application of tools and techniques to assess financial health, manage expenses, and drive revenue growth. Emphasis is placed on leveraging financial insights to support effective leadership decision-making to improve organizational performance. Key topics include financial condition analysis, labor and non-labor productivity, profitability strategies, capital allocation, and aligning financial performance with physician collaboration.

This is a course on financial management  focused on making good decisions at the institutional level about investments/divestments (primarily real assets) and about the financing choices (raising and servicing capital).

The primary aim of this elective course is to present an overview of health policy in American government, its scope, dynamics, and conceptual and practical dilemmas. It is designed to acquaint students with major issues involved in formulating, implementing, and assessing patterns of decisions established by government. Because the study of policy is essentially interdisciplinary, readings for the course have been drawn from several fields, including sociology, political science, and economics. Specific areas of consideration will be addressed during the seminar through analysis and discussion of the functions of state and local government and various stakeholder groups that attempt to influence governmental action. 

This course introduces economics concepts and modeling tools applied to economic evaluation in health care. Topics include: cost analysis, effectiveness measures, cost-effectiveness, cost-utility analysis, and cost-benefit analysis. The course will use case studies to illustrate the use of economic evaluation. Students will develop skills in software to build decision tree models, and Markov models for economic evaluation. There are no prerequisites but the students should be familiar with basic geometry, algebra and statistics.

In the Health Policy Capstone students identify a health issue with a potential policy solution and then research and advocate for a health policy that addresses that issue. Students will gather research on impacts of potential solutions, develop criteria for judging among the solutions, assess the relative merits of policies, and then advocate for their chosen health policy. In class activities include breaking down the steps of policy analysis in response to selection of health policy applications. In addition to these aspects of the course, students in the Health Policy MPH program will complete the Integrated Learning Experience (ILE) by selecting competencies, developing objectives, and writing the ILE paper during this course.

Masters students and advisor select a topic for independent study and develop learning objectives and the expected written final product.

HPAM 8310 is a required course for doctoral students in the Health Policy and Management PhD program. The purpose of this course is to develop the ability to conduct theory-based research on health care organizations. To foster this development, we will examine theoretical literature along with contemporary empirical studies of health care organizations. Special focus is placed on exploring in depth the link between theory and research exhibited in this empirical work to enable students to develop the capability of using theory to guide their own research.

This course is intended for doctoral students interested in policy analysis. It will focus on when to apply the various econometric methods to panel data. Discussion will focus on how each technique is applied in practice. Techniques will include differences-in-differences, synthetic controls, regression discontinuity, and quantile regression.

The purpose of the course is to introduce techniques of economic evaluation applied to health interventions and clinical decision making. Topics covered include: cost analysis, effectiveness measures, cost-effectiveness, utility measures and cost-utility analysis, benefits of health interventions and cost-benefit analysis. The course will discuss a number of case studies in clinical health economics to illustrate the use of economic evaluation techniques in the health sector. There are no prerequisites for the course but eh student should be familiar with basic geometry, algebra and statistics.

This course develops theoretical knowledge and applied skills in designing and conducting research in heath systems. You will utilize and build upon knowledge gained in prerequisite courses as you learn to carry out each step of the research process. You will study textbooks, and articles, present reports to the class in a seminar setting, and complete a number of assignments with contribute to the experience of research design and analysis. You will develop and understanding of factors which, unless planned and accounted for, sometimes result in serious flaws in the research project.

Doctoral students and advisor select a topic for independent study and develop learning objectives and the expected final product.