Course Descriptions – MHSc
Please note, registration in these courses is restricted to students enrolled in the MHSc program.
HAD5010H
Course Number | HAD5010H |
Course Name | Canada’s Health System and Health Policy – Part 1 |
Prerequisite | n/a (see below) |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | Fall (Block 1) |
Instructors | Sara Allin / Frances Morton-Chang |
Description: Health care remains a top policy priority in Canada and a key defining characteristic of Canadian identity. Under Canada’s universal, publicly‐funded health insurance plan (Medicare), all Canadians have access to medically necessary hospital and doctor care regardless of the ability to pay.Yet, like health systems across the industrialized world, Canada’s faces growing challenges. An aging and increasingly diverse population, global pandemics, emerging and more costly medical technologies and drugs, and rising public expectations about timely access to care, put additional demands on already stretched health care resources. The site of care is shifting as more care moves out of hospitals and into home and community. Individuals and communities are demanding a greater role in decision-making. There are increasing pressures to harmonize domestic health care policies with global “benchmarks.” In spite of billions of new health care dollars, public concerns about wait times for non‐emergency care continue to fuel debate about health system sustainability and the need for private pay care options.HAD5010 (and HAD5011, its counterpart for students in the Msc and PhD research stream) is the first of two courses which develop and apply a policy analysis “tool kit” to critically analyze key issues and trends in Canada’s health care system and health policy. Course sections examine the current state of health care in Canada, the public-private mix, the influence of powerful interest groups, and the determinants of health, paying particular attention to the ideas, interests, and institutions which have shaped the Canadian health care system in the past and which now shape its future.This graduate course is designed for health professionals and students of health policy who need to “make sense” of a rapidly changing and increasingly politicized health care environment in which “evidence” is often only one factor driving the pace and direction of change. |
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Learner Objectives: Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
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Learner Competencies: (Competencies refer to the National Centre for Healthcare Leadership Comptency Model )
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Evaluation:
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Prerequisite: There are no formal course prerequisites. However, course assignments require:
Please note: Students who feel they are weak in any of these areas should consult their Program Director about other curriculum options. |
HAD5020H
Course Number | HAD5020H |
Course Name | Canada’s Health System and Health Policy – Part 2 |
Prerequisite | HAD5010H – Canada’s Health System and Health Policy – Part 1 OR equivalent preparation |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | Winter (Block 2) |
Instructor | TBD |
Description: HAD5020H is the second policy course that develops and applies an analytic tool kit to critically assess key issues and trends in health policy in Canada. It is designed for health professionals and students of health policy who need to make sense of a highly politicized environment in which evidence is often only one, and not even the most important factor, driving change. |
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Learner Objectives: Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
Learner Competencies:
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Evaluation:
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HAD5711H
Course Number | HAD5711H |
Course Name | Theory and Practice of Strategic Planning and Management in Health Services Organizations |
Prerequisite | Registration in HAD5713H – Introduction to Health Information Systems (see below) |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | Fall (Block 1) |
Instructors | Jodeme Goldhar / Anne Wojtak |
Description: Strategic decision makers in today’s health services organizations face considerable challenges, many of which are associated with their dynamic operating environments. This course introduces contemporary strategic management theories and practices that are used to guide health services organizations through strategic planning cycles. Through selected readings, case studies and case presenters, we critically examine the main concepts of strategic planning and management including strategy formulation, implementation/execution and evaluation; strategic “fit” or alignment; the role of governance; and strategic leadership. In-class exercises focus on applying strategic planning tools. Course assignments afford students opportunities to apply these concepts to their workplaces and to the creation of a new health services organization or initiative. |
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Learner Objectives: The overall objective of this course is to provide you with the conceptual tools and the practical skills to enable you to formulate, implement and critically evaluate organizational strategy and to contribute to the underlying strategic planning processes in organizations in which you work.Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:
Learner Competencies
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Evaluation:
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Prerequisite:There are no formal course prerequisites. However, course assignments require:
Students will have completed, or will complete concurrently, HAD5010: Canada’s Health Care System and Health Policy 1 or its equivalent. |
HAD5713H
Course Number | HAD5713H |
Course Name | Introduction to Health Information Systems |
Prerequisite | Registration in HAD5724H – Quantitative Methods for Health Services Management and Policy AND HAD5711H – Theory and Practice of Strategic Planning and Management in Health Services Organizations (see below) |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | Fall (Block 1) |
Instructor | Mark Fam |
Description: In health care, information is a resource equal in importance to financial and human resources. Epidemiology offers valuable methods for compiling and analyzing data that is crucial for managing health care programs, organizations and systems. Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of diseases and injuries in populations. Managerial epidemiology, which is the focus of this course, is the application of epidemiological perspectives and methods to health care management.Although health care managers are developers, collectors, transformers, users and disseminators of information, there has been relatively little discussion about how they can enhance their selection and use of information. Many managers feel overwhelmed by massive amounts of data, much of which provides little assistance in meeting the demands of their jobs. This dilemma becomes more pronounced as provinces attempt to increase the coordination and integration of delivery systems necessitating the coordination and integration of information from a variety of sources within institutions and the community.The purpose of this course is to explore how managers can identify what they need to know, how they can access the information they need, and how they can use the information they obtain in order to be more effective decision makers. These issues will be examined in relation to the internal processes of individual organizations, the identification and accommodation of population health service needs, and the formulation of provincial and national health policy. |
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Learner Objectives: Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:
Learner Competencies
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Evaluation:
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Prerequisite: Information forms a common base for all aspects of health care. Thus, the material in this course complements that in the other Block 1 courses.This is demonstrated in a joint assignment:
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HAD5721H
Course Number | HAD5721H |
Course Name | Strategic Management of Quality and Organizational Behaviour in Health Services Organizations |
Prerequisite | HAD5711H – Theory and Practice of Strategic Planning and Management in Health Services Organizations |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | Winter (Block 2) |
Instructors | Marie Pinard / Karen Born |
Description: The course focuses on the knowledge and skills necessary for healthcare organizations to strategically measure and improve quality and patient safety. Developing better outcomes at the same (or reduced) costs is a crucial strategic objective for all health care organizations. While most health care organizations have developed quality improvement programs, these often have had limited impact in improving health care. New skills and ideas have entered healthcare that provide the information, methods and tools for managers and front line staff to improve work, to secure better outcomes for patients, and maintain or reduce the costs of providing services. These skills and knowledge require that we analyze and improve work processes, and understand and respond to the needs of patients and other customers. The work in this course will center on understanding the nature of these improvement concepts, developing knowledge about their application in health care organizations, and providing students with an orientation to and experience with basic concepts and principal methods. |
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Objectives: Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:
Learner Competencies
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Evaluation:
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HAD5723H
Course Number | HAD5723H |
Course Name | Health Services Accounting |
Prerequisite | HAD5724H – Quantitative Methods for Health Services Management and Policy OR equivalent |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | Winter (Block 2) |
Instructor | Imtiaz Daniel |
Description: HAD5723H is the first in a two-course sequence in health care financial management, intended to impart a foundation of accounting and finance knowledge necessary to manage health care organizations and make informed decisions. This first course introduces learners to managerial and financial accounting concepts. The second course, HAD5733: Health Services Finance, focuses on finance topics, such as financing and investment decisions.This course will focus heavily on managerial accounting concepts, to provide learners with the tools necessary to ensure that their organization produces the information that will support their responsibility for decision-making. As a health care manager, it is important to understand what financial reports are prepared by the organization, what information these reports provide and how this information is used. |
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Objectives: In this course you will learn:
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Learner Competencies:
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Evaluation:
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HAD5724H
Course Number | HAD5724H |
Course Name | Quantitative Methods for Health Services Management and Policy |
Prerequisite | Registration in HAD5713H – Introduction to Health Information Systems (see below) |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | Fall (Block 1) |
Instructors | Kristen Pitzul / Kaileah McKellar |
Description: The objective of this course is to introduce students to quantitative managerial skills. Increasingly managers face decisions that require reliable information and a clear understanding of their agency’s profile. Quantitative managerial skills allow for this information and understanding to be provided; it makes possible better decisions in human resources, marketing, operations, finance, accounting, and other functional areas. Objectives of the course are achieved through a combination of Readiness Assessment Tests and critical analysis of evidence based articles and the impact on decision making. Course assignments offer students opportunities to analyze a Patient Satisfaction data set using SPSS and to develop their evidence based decision making skills. |
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Learner Objectives: Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:
Learner Competencies:
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Evaluation: The final grade for this course will be determined by scores in two major performance areas: Individual Performance and Group Performance.
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Prerequisite:
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.
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HAD5725H
Course Number | HAD5725H |
Course Name | Health Economics |
Prerequisite | HAD5723H – Health Services Accounting |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | Fall (Block 4) |
Instructor | Allan Detsky |
Description: This course is designed to teach the learner the basic model of microeconomics that underlies much of the thinking and perspective of health economics. The concepts of utility maximization in a perfectly competitive world with no asymmetry of information will be presented, along with the market imperfections and distortions exhibited by the market for health care to guide the learner in interpreting the work of health economists. Specifically, the price wedge between consumers and suppliers that exists with health insurance, along with the asymmetry of information, will be discussed in detail and repeatedly. After introducing the theory and noting how the market for health care differs from other markets, the course will move onto review 6 themes: the impact of public health insurance in Canada, incentives facing physicians, technology and cost effectiveness analysis specifically related to drugs, behavioral economics at play in health, and conflicts of interest. Prior knowledge of economics will be helpful but is not required. |
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Learner Objectives: Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
Learner Competencies:
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Evaluation:
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HAD5731H
Course Number | HAD5731H |
Course Name | Translating Leadership Into Practice Part 1 |
Prerequisite | N/A |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | MHSc – Summer (Block 3) MHI – Fall Year 2 |
Instructors | Tina Smith / Christine Shea |
Description: This course explores what it means to be a leader moving from personal mastery of leadership behaviors to change leadership at the organizational level. The course uses the four competencies of Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence model as a framework, progressing from a focus on self-assessment and management to one of social awareness and skills. You cannot lead others until you know who you are, what you believe in, and why someone might want to follow you; and conversely, others will not follow you if do not understand their motivations, values and concerns and are not able to manage your relationships with them. In other words, we must first understand and manage ourselves, before we can understand and successfully manage our relationships with others. This course is designed to ensure that learners appreciate the vital role leadership plays, at all levels of the organizations, in managing and sustaining change for improved health outcomes and performance. Each course module is designed to provide a set of evidence-based learning experiences that will facilitate the learner’s leadership development through reflection, practice and the formation of action goals. Topics covered include the five practices of exemplary leadership; styles of conflict management; communication for engagement, collaboration and enhanced team performance; the role of influence in furthering change; and models of change leadership and management.Objectives: Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
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Learner Competencies:
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Evaluation:
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HAD5733H
Course Number | HAD5733H |
Course Name | Health Services Finance |
Prerequisite | HAD5723H – Health Services Accounting |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | Summer (Block 3) |
Instructor | Brian Chan / Walter Wodchis |
Description: HAD5733H is the second in a two-course sequence intended to impart to generalist administrators a knowledge of finance and accounting necessary to manage health care organizations. The first course, HAD5723H, focuses on managerial accounting topics. This second course, HAD5733H will concentrate on corporate finance topics. In addition, it will integrate corporate finance and accounting theories, institutional knowledge of health care finance, and applications to specific problems. |
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Objectives: The course will be taught in three major sections with the following objectives:
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Learner Competencies:
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Evaluation:
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HAD5736H
Course Number | HAD5736H |
Course Name | Operations Research: Tools for Quantitative Health Care Decision Making |
Prerequisite | see below |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | Fall (Block 4) |
Instructors | Dionne Aleman Michael Carter |
Description: This course introduces quantitative methods and their applications to health care decision-making. The use of these methods has recently become an active and growing area of practice and research in contexts including wait list management, patient flow, population demand estimates, health human resource management and the coordination of resources for elective and emergency services. This course is designed to provide health care decision makers with an introduction to several useful quantitative methods that can provide insight and support for complex decisions.We will cover the following topics:
This class is not intended for learners who have a background in operations research. |
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Learner Objectives: Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
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Learner Competencies:
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Evaluation:The final grade for this course will be determined by pre-class readiness assessment tests and in-class quizzes given at the end of each meeting.
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Prerequisite:Learners will be expected to have some background in probability and statistics. All learners are expected to bring laptops to class and have a working knowledge of Microsoft Excel including building equations in Excel. |
HAD5741
Course Number | HAD5741H |
Course Name | Health Law and Ethics |
Prerequisite | n/a |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | Fall (Block 4) |
Instructor | TBD |
Description: A health administrator needs to understand the legal environment within which management decisions occur. The law is often seen as ambiguous and amorphous.This course will provide you with an overview of key legal and ethical concepts and their application to the health field. Among the topics to be addressed are an overview of the law and legal process, business organizations, both “profit” and “not-for-profit”, litigation, consent and capacity, contracts, medical records, privacy, tenders, product liability and research. Specific ethical concerns and situations will be woven throughout the course. This course is not intended to turn health administrators into lawyers. |
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Learner Objectives: The overall objective of this course is to teach health administrators to identify legal and ethical issues and know when to seek legal assistance.On completion of the course, students will be able to:
Learner Competencies:
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Evaluation:
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HAD5761H
Course Number | HAD5761H |
Course Name | Introduction to eHealth: Informatics, Innovations and Information Systems |
Prerequisite | n/a |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | Summer (Block 3) |
Instructors | Shiran Isaacksz / Alexis Villa |
Description: This course provides students with a basic understanding of Information Systems theory. The primary focus is on the development and management of information systems and computer applications. It should be stressed that this is not a course on computers per se – but rather a course that applies computer technology as a means to an end. This end is, hopefully, the competent management of information and decision support systems. |
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Objectives: Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:
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Learner Competencies:
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Evaluation:
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HAD5765H
Course Number | HAD5765H |
Course Name | Case Studies in Health Policy |
Prerequisite | HAD5010H – Canada’s Health System and Health Policy – Part 1 OR equivalent (see below) |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | Winter (Block 5) |
Instructor | Raisa Deber |
Description: This course analyzes the formation and implementation of public policy through the use of case studies, focused about important theoretical concepts. Students will develop the ability to understand and analyze the processes by which public policies are formed, and the ability to perform comparisons of policy alternatives. Guest lecturers may be used where appropriate to expand upon the process of policy implementation in an informal format.Cases to be analyzed will be selected from the attached list by the class. With the permission of the instructor, new cases may be added. |
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Objectives: Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:
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Learner Competencies:
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Evaluation:
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Prerequisite: Students should be familiar with such basic concepts as:
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HAD5767H
Course Number | HAD5767H |
Course Name | Health Services Marketing |
Prerequisite | HAD5711H – Theory and Practice of Strategic Planning and Management in Health Services Organizations AND HAD5723H – Health Services Accounting AND HAD5731H – Advanced Cases in Health Administration, Management and Strategy OR equivalent |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | Fall (Block 4) |
Instructors | Jim Irving / Meghan van Zanden |
Description: To dispel a common misunderstanding: Marketing is NOT selling, and it is NOT advertising per se. Rather, Marketing can be best described as: The process by which companies/organizations engage customers, build strong customer relationships, and create customer value in order to capture value from customers in return. In other words, Marketing does not revolve around “selling” the product or service to a customer but rather causing the customer to “buy” that product or service, thus benefitting both the marketer and the customer. Every single product/service we choose to buy or use involves the marketing process. We evaluate choices and make our decision based on the best fit possible of the benefits offered. Now we must explore why Health Services offerings are unique from the perspective of Marketing. Rather than singular customer points of decision, we have multiple stakeholders to the purchase or usage decision – the patient, their family, the physician, the place of service delivery and in the publicly funded sector, the government. All these stakeholders must be carefully considered and uniquely marketed to. Overlay upon this, the evolving nature of healthcare consumers in Canada – they are wiser, more discerning, better educated about their health issues, and far more demanding than ever before. More and more, they are recognizing that they do in fact have choice in terms of health resolution, point of delivery, and physician delivery. The harsh reality, as well, is the ever-increasing financial burden being placed upon The Canada Health Act, which bears out within provincial budgets and product/service choices. The answer is not so easily stated that more publicly-funded services should be privatized, but rather that healthcare in Canada must be delivered in the future better, more efficiently and safer – with the backbone of this being innovation, engagement, research, sound strategy, positioning, positive mutual impact – i.e. HEALTH SERVICES MARKETING. |
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Learner Objectives: Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
Learner Competencies:
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Evaluation:
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HAD5769H
Course Number | HAD5769H |
Course Name | Human Resources Management and Labour Relations in the Health Field |
Prerequisite | n/a |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | Fall (Block 4) |
Instructor | Tyrone A. Perreira |
Description: The overall objective of this course is to increase learners’ appreciation for and skills in managing a diverse workforce in health care. The focus is on creating high quality health care workplaces through strengthening the employment relationship (including union-management relations) taking into account the social, economic and regulatory context within which that relationship is defined. As health care organizations have decentralized decision-making, many of the traditional HRM functions have become the domain of the manager. In some organizations the human resources management processes are well integrated with overall organizational strategy while in others they are limited to the technical component. Students will be introduced to the basic human resources management functions including selection, training, performance management and management of the collective agreement but, it is not the intent that they will become specialists in these areas. The principal strategic issues which will be addressed include what it means to be a high quality workplace, the changing nature of work and workplace organization including employee engagement as a human resource strategy, the concern with productivity and the measurement of that productivity through performance indicators in a rapidly restructuring system, the impact of new working arrangements on the employer-employee relationship and the creation of learning organizations. Cases, course readings, role playing and guest lecturers are the approaches used to give learners an opportunity to critically analyze the complexity of the employment relationship. |
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Learner Objectives: Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
Learner Competencies:
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Evaluation:
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HAD5770H
Course Number | HAD5770H |
Course Name | Program Planning and Evaluation |
Prerequisite | n/a |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | Winter (Block 2) |
Instructors | Val Rac / Aleksandra Stanimirovic |
Description: This course will provide an overview of the current status of program planning and evaluation. Its purpose is to give participants an understanding of the planning and evaluation process, to familiarize them with current program planning and evaluation techniques and to have them develop the skills to apply these techniques to the health and social services sector. |
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Objectives: The objectives of the course include:
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. |
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Learner Competencies:
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Evaluation:
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HAD5775H
Course Number | HAD5775H |
Course Name | Competition, Cooperation and Strategy in Health Care |
Prerequisite | None |
Delivery Format | Five 5-hour lectures |
Semester Offered | Winter (Block 5) |
Instructors | Adalsteinn Brown, David Klein |
Description: Current changes in the Canadian health system, including most prominently changes in the accountability requirements on health system organizations have renewed interest in strategic planning techniques more common to private sector organizations. A number of strategic planning tools such as balanced scorecards and scenario planning are used in Canada, but there is varied understanding of how they can be adapted to a Canadian context that has different characteristics from the competitive marketplace that stimulated their uptake elsewhere and how these concepts affect institutions within the Canadian health system.This course endeavours to show how these tools can be used to understand and respond to critical issues in Canadian health system management. Students taking this course explore a number of issues around the application of strategy and performance measurement frameworks to cases from the for-profit, government, and broader public sectors in health care. This is a survey course that touches on a number of issues and examples in the management of health system organizations.Objectives:1. To increase students’ ability to synthesize different pieces of information on competitive forces in the environment to support the development and evaluation of strategy2. Enable students to apply industry and corporate strategic analysis and performance measurement techniques to address common health policy topics through organizing disparate sources of information on an organization’s competitive environment. |
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Learner Competencies:
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Evaluation:
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HAD5777H
Course Number | HAD5777H |
Course Name | Leading and Managing Change: Building Adaptive Capacity |
Prerequisite | None |
Delivery Format | Modular |
Semester Offered | Winter (Block 5) |
Instructors | Tina Smith / Christine Shea |
Description: Continuous change is the norm for healthcare professionals. Whether it is in technological advances, process improvement, patient expectations or redefining roles and structures, change is prevalent in every aspect of every working day. In this course, learners are presented with a leadership framework that focuses on building the capacity within themselves, their teams and their organizations to respond adaptively to the depth, pace and scope of change that is creating unprecedented conditions in healthcare systems today (S. Dalzo-Parks, 2005).Based on the work of Ronald Heifetz, the framework requires a paradigm shift from viewing leadership as a role or person to seeing it as an activity – the activity of making progress on adaptive challenges; and from viewing the organization as a static entity to seeing it as an organism capable of adapting to its environment. It requires those exercising leadership to understand the dynamics of social systems, and to trust in their own and others creativity and intuition (S. Dalzo-Parks, 2005). Finally, it addresses the ethical challenges associated with leadership as critical choices must take into account the diversity of perspectives surrounding the issue, and the moral courage and resilience required to challenge assumed values i.e. the notion of a good death.The second, in a two-part series on Leading and Managing Change, the overall goal of this course is to facilitate the building of adaptive capacity within healthcare systems by deepening the practice of developing both ourselves and others intentionally, mindfully and creatively. Through in-class discussion and small group consultation labs, participants will learn to mobilize constructive change through the development of a new and enhanced capacity to see, effectively analyze, and strategically intervene. |
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Objectives: Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
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Evaluation:
HAD5800H
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