Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• SPH PM 780: Managerial Accounting for Healthcare Leaders
  This course will focus on the differences between financial and managerial accounting, and how to apply financial data to everyday decision making in a health care organization. Students will develop skills in: creating financial reports that project both revenues and expenses into the future; evaluating such reports as the basis for operational and strategic decisions; and understanding the relationship between cost measurement and behavior.
• SPH PM 785: Mental Health Advocacy
  This two credit course is designed to help students understand how advocacy works in the field of mental health (and substance use), how it has succeeded and failed in this field historically, and how it is similar to and different from other advocacy movements. Each student will identify an advocacy project in the field and develop a proposal describing what it would take to execute it. In seven short weeks, it would be difficult to expect every project to be executed, but students will learn strategies for the planning, vision, and coalition building needed for their Advocacy Projects. In a word this is a course about HOW a needed change would be enacted. Your job is to identify a change that needs to happen and to work to see how it would happen.
• SPH PM 790: Pro-seminar: Tools for Project Management, Communication, and Budgeting
  Researchers and research professionals are routinely called upon to ensure research project success through the application of many professional skills beyond data collection, management, and analysis. In this course, students will learn and apply concepts and tools relevant to research project management, budget development, research team management, and the communication of research results to various audiences. Students will work together to apply each skill to a real research project, and will present their work to the rest of the class.
• SPH PM 802: Pharmaceutical Management, Policy and Practice in the 21st Century: A Case Study Approach
  This course, formerly PM742, gives an overview of the pharmaceutical industry domestically and internationally in a public health context. The course will synthesize and integrate key pharmaceutical topics with a focus on health policy and management. Topics include the functions of the FDA, research and development of drugs, government regulation and patents, access to drugs, vaccines, Medicare Part D, Accountable Care Act and the use of large pharmaceutical datasets to investigate the effectiveness of drugs. This course will use a case study approach targeted to real world decision making problems raised by the pharmaceutical industry.
• SPH PM 804: Digital Disruption In Health: The Effects Of Health Information Technologies On Polices, Delivery, Patient Engagement, And Health Outcomes
  This course is designed to introduce students to health information technologies (HIT) and how they are changing delivery of care in the US--- including effects on efficiency, equity, effectiveness and patient satisfaction. Students explore issues related to electronic medical records, standards for meaningful use, personal health records, public health information systems, interoperability of HIT, and mHealth. Students examine the impact of federal government intervention to increase HIT adoption, and compare the use of HIT in the US with other industrialized countries. Students apply their knowledge by working through an in-depth case study of an implementation of HIT in a health care delivery organization or public health department. Readings introduce theoretical frameworks related to HIT, including the Technology Acceptance Model. Assignments include a policy memo, an individual case analysis, and in-class quizzes.
• SPH PM 807: Introduction to Cost Effectiveness Analysis
  This course examines the use of cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) in health policy and medical decision-making. Students gain a working knowledge of theoretical and practical issues encountered in conducting and applying CEA, i.e. identifying costs and relative effectiveness and consequences of health care interventions (e.g., pharmaceuticals), prevention programs, and policies. Approaches to formulating the problem, adopting a perspective for the analysis, measuring costs, evaluating consequences, discounting, and reflecting uncertainty are discussed. Emphasis is on acquiring skills necessary for becoming informed consumers of CEA, learning to appraise published literature, and developing simple cost-effectiveness models. Case studies demonstrate the use of CEAs. Exercises highlight methodological issues and the development of models in several in-class computer lab sessions. The computer lab sessions offer hands-on experience with the design of models in Microsoft Excel. The class is appropriate for students in the Pharmaceuticals Program. Students who take PM855 may not take PM807.
• SPH PM 811: Health Services Research and Methods
  This course emphasizes an application-oriented approach to the study of health services research with the goal of informing health care policy. Emphasis is on definition of the problem, scale of the study, research methods, and analysis. A foundation is covered among the following possible areas: measurement issues (reliability and validity), secondary data analysis, clinical trials, sampling, survey methods, qualitative methods, and economics (cost-effectiveness). Students are expected to prepare a grant proposal on a contemporary topic of their own choosing with health policy implications.
• SPH PM 814: Contemporary Theoretical and Empirical Issues in Health Services Research
  Required for all students in the MPH Healthcare Management Certificate. This cornerstone course for the MS and PhD programs in Health Services Research provides an introduction to the issues, policies, and research questions in the field. Namely, how do institutions, organizations, and policy decisions, as well as the actions of people whose needs are to be served, affect the quality, quantity, and availability of health care? How is research informing changes in health services? Readings are drawn from research reports and articles. The course challenges students to formulate research questions and consider evidence within the evolving, multidisciplinary context of the health services research field of inquiry.
• SPH PM 817: Introduction to Organizational Theory
  Aligning with evidence-based medicine, evidenced-based management advances decision making from the realm of intuition to scientific study and implementation. Historically, however, there has been limited adoption of evidence-based programs without first changing an organization's culture. This suggests a need to both support "active users of evidence," but also to define which "evidence" is best, mindful that whoever controls the definition of "evidence" holds the power to disrupt the system. With this paradox in mind, the structure and behavior of healthcare organizations can have a major impact on the access, quality, safety, and cost of patient care. In this course, we will review and apply the major organization theory perspectives to address health care planning and action at the: (1) macrolevel - the ways that organizations adapt to various market and environmental factors; the (2) mesolevel - the structures and processes occurring at the level of the organization as a whole or within an organization network; and (3) the microlevel - the internal activities and relationships, such as within teams, inside an organization's boundaries. Particular attention is given to the theory of how organizations function in their changing environments, and in developing the student's ability to conduct theory-based research on health care organizations.
• SPH PM 818: Health Information Technology
  This course provides students with the knowledge and skills to evaluate and manage information technology in heath care organizations. In particular it focuses on the role of IT in driving organizational change and supporting quality improvement and elimination of medical errors. Topics include electronic health records, computerized provider order entry, interoperability, management decision support, and provider pay for performance. The perspective of the course is that of the chief information officer (CIO) and other managers and users of health care information systems, not that of the technical specialist. The course will consist of a series of lectures, cases, and discussions, some of which will be led by guest lecturers who are experts in the field of health care information technology and systems. Course requirements include a quiz, a 10-page paper, and a class presentation. The class meets at the Charles River Campus with GSM HM817 on the GSM schedule.
• SPH PM 820: Introduction to Quality Measurement
  This course sets out to answer a number of foundational and application-based questions for health services researchers and other health professionals focusing on evaluation of health care quality: What are some frameworks within which we can measure, evaluate, and improve quality of care? How we do reliably and validly measure quality? How do we use different types of data to measure and report on different dimensions of quality? What are ways in which quality data may be aggregated and what controversies surround those approaches? How do we appropriately profile providers and systems, and how do we best create and interpret composite measures in doing so? Throughout the semester, students will be able to answer these questions and apply this learning to practical data exercises and case studies.
• SPH PM 821: Advanced Health Services Research Methods
  This course builds on SPH PM811 by providing advanced methods and their applications to studies of health care outcomes, quality, and economics. Methods covered include: advanced measurement techniques such as item response theory and applications through computer adaptive testing, selecting the research design, meta-analysis, advanced statistics applied to grant proposals, and econometric methods using instrumental variables. Students develop an original paper based upon a secondary data analysis.
• SPH PM 822: Advanced Health Services Research Methods
  This course builds on MS and PhD program with a quantitative focus by providing advanced methods and their applications to studies of health care outcomes, quality, and economics. Methods covered include: advanced measurement techniques such as item response theory and applications through computer adaptive testing, selecting the research design, meta-analysis, advanced statistics applied to grant proposals, and econometric methods using instrumental variables. Students develop an original paper based upon a secondary data analysis.
• SPH PM 824: Theory & Research on Organizations
  The purposes of this course are first to develop the students' understanding of major theoretical perspectives on health care organizations, and second to develop their abilities to apply these theories to conduct theory-based research on health care organizations. The course achieves this understanding through an in-depth review of contemporary literature addressing each major theoretical perspective and through written assignments and discussions of the contrasts among the major theoretical perspectives on organizations. To develop their abilities to apply the theories, students also design organizational research based upon the different theories.
• SPH PM 826: Health, Illness, and the Use of Health Services
  This course provides an introduction to social science research relating to patients' engagement with health services. Its goal is to develop critical understandings of how people perceive a need for health services, seek them, engage in transactions with health care providers as "patients" and live with the outcomes of care. The central theme is patient-centered health care as a basis for inquiry in health economics (e.g., consumer behavior, decision making) and health care quality and outcomes (e.g., approaches to chronic illness care, shared decision making).
• SPH PM 827: Strategic Management of Healthcare Organizations
  This course examines key strategic issues that healthcare organizations face that affect their competitive position and performance. Through the course students learn to select and apply analytic frameworks from economics, management, and law to resolve these strategic issues. Students develop skills in strategic planning and management that includes industry and competitive analysis.
• SPH PM 828: Advanced Seminar in Qualitative Research Methods for Health Services Research
  This course will focus on the use of qualitative methods in understanding outcomes of care, such as patient-centered perspectives on illness and health care; processes of care, such as doctor-patient interactions and communication; and the organization of care, such as the impact of different organizational structures on the quality of care. Students will develop skills in the use of qualitative methods in health services research, including the procedures of focus groups, the use of in-depth interviews, naturalistic observations of health care practices, and ethnographic studies of health care organizations and client communities. The course is part of the PhD program in Health Services Research, but will be of interest to other students who wish to learn about utilizing qualitative methods in their research.
• SPH PM 830: Developing Patient-Based Health Status and Outcomes Measures
  Contemporary health services research relies heavily on patient-based measures of health status and other outcomes of health care. This course covers development and application of health status constructs to be measured, scope and content of questionnaires, qualitative and quantitative methods of scale development and validation, and new assessment methodologies including Item Response Theory and Computer Adapted Testing. Practical issues of deciding if and when to develop a new measure, as well as selecting and applying measures in designing health outcomes research are addressed.
• SPH PM 831: Implementation Science: Linking Research to Practice
  A major gap exists in health services research between what is known about interventions and the actual use of those interventions in practice. Often, interventions shown effective in the research setting do not translate in the real world. Implementation science focuses on developing methods to ensure that evidence‐based models are effectively translated to the clinical setting. The course focuses on the complex concepts of implementation science, including the wide range of theoretical frameworks and approaches driving the field. Students will also learn about different models of implementation research, its strengths and limitations, and develop an implementation research study proposal.
• SPH PM 832: Operations Management in Health Care
  This course is designed to focus on the field of operations management (OM) in healthcare. Students will learn to apply OM principles to develop more effective operational processes, mitigate risks, and improve quality. Discussions from the text, case studies and assignments will focus on strategies and techniques of quality improvement processes, project management, work-flow and system design, and capacity planning. Additionally students will explore the intricacy, complexity and dynamics of logistics in healthcare. An industry based project will enable students to engage and implement several of the tools learned in class.

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