Course Descriptions – MHSc

• Identify major elements of Canada’s health care system
• Explain current health policy issues and trends in Canada and internationally
• Apply a conceptual policy analysis toolkit to “make sense” of a volatile health policy environment
• Write short, concise briefing notes which synthesize academic articles, policy papers and reports as the basis for evaluating and recommending policy options
•  Value the need for a policy analytic approach

• Analytical Thinking
• Communication Skills
• Information Seeking
• Initiative
• Innovative Thinking
• Self-Confidence

• A basic understanding of the major elements of Canada’s health care system
• An awareness of major health care trends and issues
• A developed ability to read and use course materials and other sources to research and write graduate-level, analytic assignments
• Developed English language abilities

Please note: Students who feel they are weak in any of these areas should consult their Program Director about other curriculum options.

top

• Apply an analytic tool kit to a health policy environment.
• Explain current health policy issues and trends in Canada and internationally.
• Identify policy options and the conditions that make some more feasible than others.
• Appreciate the usefulness of the policy analytic approach in responding

Learner Competencies:
(Competencies refer to the National Centre for Healthcare Leadership Comptency Model) .

• Analytical Thinking
• Communication Skills
• Information Seeking
• Initiative
• Innovative Thinking
• Self-Confidence

• Differentiate between the various motivations for developing a strategic plan
• Distinguish among alternative contemporary conceptualizations of strategy
• Identify and relate critical steps in the strategic planning process
• Anticipate and mitigate common barriers to strategy implementation and leverage facilitators
• Critically analyze the fit between organizational design and strategy
• Explain and integrate the essential elements of successful organizational strategies into your organization’s strategic plan
• Acknowledge, value and capitalize upon the different perspectives of executive, management and front-line workers during strategic planning processes
• Analyze the structure and processes of governance in health care organizations
• Anticipate the future challenges for strategic planners in health care
• Devise a viable strategic plan based upon knowledge of the strategic planning process and critical elements
• Critically evaluate the merits and feasibility of strategic plans using an array of contemporary evaluation tools

Learner Competencies
(Competencies refer to the National Centre for Healthcare Leadership Competency Model)

• Analytical Thinking
• Initiative
• Organizational Awareness
• Innovative Thinking
• Process Management and Organizational Design
• Strategic Orientation

• A basic understanding of the major elements of Canada’s health care system
• An awareness of major health care trends and issues
• A developed ability to read and use course materials and other sources to research and write graduate-level, analytic assignments
• Developed English language abilities

Students will have completed, or will complete concurrently, HAD5010: Canada’s Health Care System and Health Policy 1 or its equivalent.

• Identify relevant health and socio-economic information sources to construct specific community and/or population profiles
• Describe the relationship between social and environmental characteristics and health needs; how they impact health outcomes; and how this knowledge can be used to inform management and policy decision-making
• Judge the accessibility, quality, uses and limitations of available health information in supporting effective and efficient management of health care organizations and related government agencies
• Develop a needs assessment for a specific population and geographic area to identify opportunities for and obstacles to the provision of health services
• Establish performance criteria for new health or social services programs that impact health outcomes for a specific population
• Recognize the implications of transmissible diseases and environmental risks for population health planning and decision making using epidemiological methods and tools
• Explain and interpret epidemiological analysis applied to decision making
• Display confidence in using health related methods and data for decision making
• Present and defend the creation of a new cross-health sector enterprise
• Demonstrate the ability to work in a team environment and hold others accountable for their performance

Learner Competencies
(Competencies refer to the National Centre for Healthcare Leadership Competency Model)

• Analytical Thinking
• Collaboration
• Communication Skills
• Community Orientation
• Information Seeking
• Initiative
• Innovative Thinking
• Performance Measurement
• Self-confidence

• A group project entitled “Improving the Coordination of Health Care Delivery for Specific Needs,” which is a joint assignment for HAD5713H and HAD5711H

• • Explain the underlying theoretical framework for continual improvement of health care.
  • Explain why quality improvement strategies are critical for health services organizations.
  • Describe and give examples of the roles and responsibilities of health services managers, health professionals, and staff for quality improvement and patient safety
  • Apply basic improvement methods and tools for analyzing work processes and for assisting groups in developing remedies for improving these processes
  • Explain methods for testing changes and improving work processes
  • Create strategies for developing customer knowledge and assess that knowledge for the design or redesign of healthcare
  • Understand the nature of variation in healthcare and its role in improving quality of care
  • Interpret a control chart and be capable of identifying the uses of a control chart
  • Explain why analyzing and improving work as a system is critical for effective, safe and efficient care
  • Identify how organizations need to create a culture that fosters innovation and continual improvement
  • Analyze how organizational learning contributes to successful organizational performance
  • Understand how organizations need to assess risk and deal with organization failures
  • Understand the challenges related to addressing and improving patient safety and high reliability in health care organizations
  • Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches and methods for improving the quality of care.

Learner Competencies
(Competencies refer to the National Centre for Healthcare Leadership Competency Model)

• • Analytical Thinking
  • Innovative Thinking
  • Interpersonal Understanding
  • Process Management and Organizational Design

• Financial Accounting:
  • The types of financial reports required by organizations and the type of information in those financial statements.
  • The theory and foundation of financial accounting and the ‘rules’ for the accumulation and reporting of financial information.
  • Key financial performance measures and the interpretation of financial performance.
• Managerial Accounting:
  • The concepts and vocabulary in measuring costs, depending on the needs of the decision maker.
  • The implications and use of management accounting tools and information for short term and long term decision making.
  • Management accounting applications of forecasting, budgeting, and variance analysis.
• Performance Analysis:
  • Perform a performance analysis of a chosen health care organization using financial and managerial information from provincial datasets.

• Accountability
• Achievement Orientation
• Analytical Thinking
• Communication Skills
• Financial Skills
• Performance Management
• Self-Confidence

Readiness Assurance Tests (4 @ 3.75% each)	15%
In-class Group Exercise/Assignment – Financial Analysis	20%
In-class Group Exercise/Assignment – Planning & Budgeting	25%
Individual Performance Analysis Project	25%

• Value the use of statistical analyses for performance management and evaluation of health care services and programs
• Display confidence in ability to use quantitative information for management decision making
• Reconstruct administrative problems into researchable questions
• Evaluate how the characteristics of descriptive statistics can impact management decision making
• Select and apply appropriate inferential statistical tests
• Relate the results of a hypothesis test with nominal data to “real-life” decision making situations
• Demonstrate the ability to work collaboratively in a team environment and hold others accountable for their performance

Learner Competencies:
(Competencies refer to the National Centre for Healthcare Leadership Competency Model).

• Accountability
• Analytical Thinking
• Collaboration
• Information Seeking
• Innovative Thinking
• Performance Measurement
• Self-confidence

• All learners are required, prior to the start of classes in September,to have a working knowledge of the following topics:
  

  Measures of central tendency	Normal Distribution
  Measures of dispersion	Distribution of Sample Means
  Frequency distributions	Confidence Intervals
  Percents/skewness	Hypothesis testing for a Single Pop.
  Chi Square test
  Analysis of Variance
  Bivariate linear regression
  Hypothesis testing for differences Between Means
  Hypothesis testing for differences Between Proportions
  Regression analysis
  Regression inference

• All learners will be required to complete a computer based assignment. Learners will be able to acquire SPSS-PC through a University of Toronto site license. Instruction in SPSS-PC will be provided either during orientation week or during class.

Please note: Due to the accelerated nature of this course, most learners will find it helpful to have worked through as much of the required material as they can prior to the first class period.

• To understand the basic model of microeconomic theory and utility maximization, the assumptions that underlie that model and what happens when they are violated.
• To understand how Canadian health care and the people who deliver it have been affected by public insurance and payments over the last 60 years.
• To understand how incentives work to change behavior of both consumers and suppliers, and the nuances of the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivators.
• To understand what cost- effectiveness analysis is, and what it is not.  To understand the uses and limitations in evaluating health care technologies.
• To be able to identify the parties who are affected by a policy or practice intervention, and the incentives that motivate those parties.
• To understand how behavior is motivated by risk and framing , as well as some of the cognitive psychological concepts that influence behavior.
• To understand the impact of conflicts of interest and how self-discipline and personal ethics usually fails to curb that influence in health care.
• At the end of this course, the learner should be able to apply and defend economic concepts that are incorporated in decision making for health care administrators at the policy, public health and clinical levels.

Learner Competencies:
(Competencies refer to the National Centre for Healthcare Leadership Competency Model) .

• Accountability
• Achievement Orientation
• Analytical Thinking
• Collaboration
• Information Seeking
• Innovative Thinking
• Performance Measurement
• Self-confidence

1. Indicate their leadership development needs and construct a set of goals that are challenging but achievable.
2. Exhibit responsibility for their own performance.
3. Identify and align actions to shared values.
4. Describe their image of the future and inspire others to share a common vision.
5. Recognize opportunities to challenge the status quo and improve performance.
6. Create a climate in which people are willing to innovate and learn from mistakes.
7. Identify actions that allow others to excel in their work.
8. Recognize the accomplishment of others in ways that are meaningful to them.
9. Build collaboration, teamwork, and trust.
10. Explain diverse points of view by actively listening to both emotion and content.
11. Develop critical approaches for constructive negotiation and conflict management strategies.
12. Diagnose issues and resolve same using influence strategies.
13. Plan and execute an organizational change

• Accountability
• Achievement Orientation
• Change Leadership
• Collaboration
• Impact & Influence
• Information Seeking
• Interpersonal Understanding
• Organizational Awareness
• Professionalism
• Self-Development
• Talent Development
• Team Leadership

1. Investments (or capital expenditures):
   • Achieving a conceptual understanding of valuation and the effects of project selection, asset acquisition, financing methods and the time value of money;
   • Developing an ability to evaluate the desirability of a project, based on net present value calculations and considerations of non-cash values;
   • Gaining a facility with the use of spreadsheet technology in conducting financial analyses.
2. Financing:
   • Achieving an ability to estimate the cost of various sources of financing, based on projected cash flow
   • Gaining an ability to evaluate leasing versus buying of an asset.
3. Other topics:
   • Gaining an understanding of how to develop a strategic long range financial plan
   • Gaining an understanding of capital and operations financial planning for a long-term care facilty;
   • Gaining an understanding of the financial aspects of public-private partnerships.

• Achievement Orientation
• Analytical Thinking
• Financial Skills
• Initiative
• Innovative Thinking
• Self-Confidence
• Strategic Orientation

• Mathematical model formulation
• Linear programming and optimization
• Forecasting
• Queuing theory and simulation modeling
• Project management
• Introduction to decision analysis.

This class is not intended for learners who have a background in operations research.

• Reconstruct management problems into mathematical models for optimization
• Graphically describe the mathematical models to understand the relationship of decision alternatives
• Develop Excel spreadsheets to solve mathematical optimization problems
• Appraise and justify the value of resource allocation decisions using sensitivity analysis
• Interpret retrospective data to predict future states
• Develop models using simulation and queuing theory that predict wait times, service demands and resource utilization
• Manage project deadlines using quantitative tools
• Display confidence in using quantitative methods to make health care decisions and hold people accountable for making high quality recommendations
• Be willing to face quantitative facts even when they are counter-intuitive

• Accountability
• Achievement Orientation
• Analytical Thinking
• Initiative
• Innovative Thinking
• Performance Measurement
• Project Management
• Self-Confidence

• Identify legal and ethical issues that impact on health care delivery and know when to resolve those using existing policies and procedures and when to seek legal assistance and/or other organizational resources
• Develop a conceptual framework for evaluating problems from a legal and ethical perspective
• Assess the interplay between the law and ethics to ensure good corporate governance and improve accountability at all levels
• Act and hold people accountable for ethical decision-making
• Distinguish between terms of contracts that are advantageous and those that are not
• Establish best practices for ensuring personal and corporate privacy
• Have confidence in the ability to apply legal and ethical standards to consent based decision-making
• Interpret litigation risk from a negligence perspective

Learner Competencies:
(Competencies refer to the National Centre for Healthcare Leadership Competency Model).

• Accountability
• Analytical Thinking
• Information Seeking
• Initiative
• Innovative Thinking
• Organizational Awareness
• Process Management and Organizational Design
• Professionalism
• Project Management
• Self-confidence
• Strategic Orientation

• Describe the critical success factors that can facilitate the development and implementation of better Information, Information Management Technology and Information Technology systems;
• Analyze strategies for creating innovative solutions and their successful implementation;
• Apply basic continual improvement methods and tools for analyzing work processes for improving IS processes;
• Analyze and describe the strengths and weaknesses of systems and communicate that to the technology community;
• Compare the efficiency and effectiveness of different information systems or platforms to the point of being able to define optimal strategies in healthcare;
• Measure the status of information systems in place today.

• Achievement Orientation
• Analytical Thinking
• Change Leadership
• Communication Skills
• Impact & Influence
• Information Seeking
• Information Technology Management
• Innovative Thinking
• Organizational Awareness
• Project Management

• understand and analyze the processes by which public policies are formed and implemented,
• perform comparisons of policy alternatives,
• analyze and discuss case studies in class,
• organize and manage an in-class discussion of a case study, and apply appropriate theoretical concepts to better understand and analyze public policy.

• Analytical Thinking
• Collaboration
• Communication Skills
• Information Seeking
• Innovative Thinking
• Organizational Awareness

• Introduction to Canadian politics
• Policy formation – including roles of Royal Commissions, task forces, committees, etc.
• Budgetary system
• Policy outputs (including distributive, regulatory, redistributive policies)
• Policy instruments
• Factors influencing policy formation, especially pressure groups and media
• Inter-governmental relations
• Inter-departmental relations; resource allocation within departments
• Policy/Administration tension
• Roles of experts vs/ generalists; administrators vs. politicians
• Role of quasi-independent agencies; regulation.

• Endorse the benefits of a marketing orientation as a strategic approach to strengthen engagement by an organization’s consumers and other stakeholders
• Apply measurements to assess the impact of marketing activities
• Predict the sources of bias in marketing research
• Influence the major factors affecting the acceptance of innovation
• Analyse markets in order to identify viable segments, select appropriate targets, and formulate effective positioning strategies
• Identify the unique qualities that contribute to the creation of a “strong” brand
• Determine solutions for the unique problems facing service brands taking into consideration the interrelationship between marketing strategy and people strategy
• Propose low cost or no cost forms of marketing communications
• Construct a formal marketing plan based on strategic analysis and the integration of relevant marketing principles including a workable implementation plan and measurement of outcomes
• Formulate differentiation strategies for personal branding

Learner Competencies:
(Competencies refer to the National Centre for Healthcare Leadership Comptency Model).

• Analytical Thinking
• Communication Skills
• Impact and Influence
• Information Seeking
• Initiative
• Innovative Thinking
• Performance Measurement
• Self-development

• Analyze strategies to link human resources practices to the overall formation and implementation of strategies in health service organizations
• Based on the evidence, demonstrate how managers can create healthy workplaces
• Apply the regulatory framework which affects human resources management practices to a number of cases
• Understand the relationship of work design to the changing skill mix of the health care workforce
• Determine the manager’s role in human resources management and the role of the HR specialist in advising management
• Demonstrate how health care managers can work within a Collective Agreement
• Compare the differing perspectives managers and employees have of the employment relationship
• Increase own understanding of the different perspectives individuals have about diversity
• Develop strategies for addressing the challenges faced by health care managers in managing the performance of a diverse workforce
• Examine one’s perspective related to the concept of justice (fairness) and how it can be reflected in HRM practices
• Differentiate different approaches to compensation practices and their challenges
• Describe the relationship of competency development to job analysis, recruitment, selection and retention
• Evaluate effectiveness of different approaches in the management of employee performance
• Conduct effective performance management interviews
• Distinguish between different approaches to the management of knowledge within the organization
• Become more familiar with the types of employee health related problems in the healthcare workplace and management practices used to address these issues
• Present research findings before an audience of experienced administrators and scientists

Learner Competencies:
(Competencies refer to the National Centre for Healthcare Leadership Competency Model).

• Analytical Thinking
• Communication Skills
• Human Resources Management
• Impact and Influence
• Information Seeking
• Organizational Awareness
• Process Management and Organizational Design
• Performance Management
• Self-development

• Reviewing the role of program planning and evaluation within broader management and policy processes, and discussing the characteristics and nature of these activities,
• Discussing the different types of evaluation, including needs assessments, process and outcome evaluations, from the perspectives of different stakeholders, and
• Developing the skills to apply planning and evaluation concepts to the health and social services sector.

A secondary objective of the course is to provide an opportunity for students to develop expertise in working in groups in an on-line environment.

• Accountability
• Analytical Thinking
• Change Leadership
• Collaboration
• Impact & Influence
• Information Seeking
• Initiative
• Organizational Awareness
• Process Management and Organizational Design

• Achievement Orientation
• Analytical Thinking
• Communication Skills
• Financial Skills
• Initiative
• Innovative Thinking
• Organizational Awareness
• Performance Measurement
• Self-Confidence
• Strategic Orientation

• Distinguish between adaptive and technical work and explain what each requires to make progress (C4 – Analysis)
• Indicate the difference between the role of authority and the exercise of leadership (C6 – Evaluation)
• Perceive that there is a productive range of tension to make progress on leadership challenges (C5- Synthesis)
• Identify the sources of resistance and develop strategies to manage them (C4- Analysis)
• Identify the polarities within adaptive work and generate a process for managing them (C5 – Synthesis)
• Display an ability to continually reflect in action (A5 – Characterization by a Value or Value Complex)
• Relate the practices to current healthcare challenges (C6 – Evaluate)
• Value the need to thrive while leading adaptive change (A3 – Valuing)

top

HAD5800H