Graduate Certificate in Health Care in Strategy and Marketing

This structured curriculum provides a focused approach and an emphasis on practical application to understanding and applying strategy and marketing in health care settings. 
 

HSM 420 - Business Economics of the Health Care Industry

HSM 420 uses the tools of managerial economics to analyze the business institutions, practices, and regulation of the health care industry. The course covers the health care value chain including: i) purchasers of health care services (e.g., government, private insurers and employers); ii) providers of health care services (e.g., hospitals and physicians); and iii) manufacturers of medical devices, pharmaceuticals and supplies. Each unit of the course consists of an economic overview of the industry segment, including a review of the managerial economics issues that are currently important in the industry segment. Topics include the economic structure of the U.S. healthcare industry, including its vertical relations; placing the US healthcare system in international context and understanding the role that technology plays in driving long term change in the industry; the fiscal crises that beset Medicare and recent payment innovations that Medicare has made that may fundamentally change the organization and delivery of health care services; private health insurance in the U.S.; provider sector restructuring, both horizontally and vertically, to meet the challenges posed by population health and capitation; the evolution of managed care as embodied in Accountable Care Organizations and consumer driven health care; quality measurement and reward, disease management and pay-for-performance; management challenges of the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, including managing the flow of innovation and marketing and distributing new products; current trends in both the adoption of and payment for medical technology including cost-effectiveness analysis; and the likely effects of health care reform on the health economy.

MKT 402 - Marketing Management

This course is our introduction to marketing management. The key objectives of the course are (1) to provide the student with a series of frameworks for identifying, analyzing, and solving marketing problems and (2) to enhance the student’s ability to effectively communicate analyses and solutions. We first focus on understanding the three C’s – customers, the company, and competitors. Based on this analysis, we develop a strategy for our product(s) and discuss how a marketing strategy can be implemented through the elements of the marketing mix: product design, pricing, advertising & promotion as well as channels of distribution. The class sessions consist of classroom lectures and case study discussions. Rather than focusing on internalizing facts and institutional detail, the emphasis is on critical thinking and application of the fundamental marketing strategy principles to business situations at hand.

HSM 430 - Health Sciences Management and Strategy 

This course applies the principles of organizational economics and strategy to the institutional setting of health sciences. The course focuses on the interdependence between the delivery, financing, and technology sectors of the health care marketplace. It discusses how management and strategy choices within each sector are responses to the unique institutional factors in the health care marketplace and how the strategies of each sector affect the behavior of the others. Students will leave the course with an ability to think productively about management and strategy challenges within each of the three health science sectors.