Health Systems Research (HSR)

Faculty lead: Boriana Miloucheva & Alex Hoagland

Students will gain an in-depth understanding of fundamental economic principles as they relate to the healthcare sector. This emphasis builds capacity in mathematical and statistical techniques while providing students with practical knowledge on how to effectively communicate research motivations, study designs, findings, and implications to various audiences including academics and decision-makers. Students will feel equipped to critically analyze health policy issues and have a deeper understanding of resource allocation, health services supply, and how healthcare markets work.

Areas of study include: 

• Health economic theory
• Health economic evaluation
• Health econometrics and machine learning

Faculty lead: Nelson Shen & Nur Camellia Zakaria

Students will design, evaluate, and use health informatics capabilities to better manage information and improve healthcare delivery. This highly interdisciplinary emphasis tackles major issues around the design, development, and evaluation of electronic solutions in consumer, community, and acute care settings. Students will be prepared with the necessary research tools, including the use of conceptual frameworks and research methods, to investigate specific areas of interest. 

Areas of study include: 

• Development and evaluation of digital health innovations
• Implementation of digital health innovations
• Health informatics theory

Faculty lead: Sara Allin & Jean-Louis Denis

Students will investigate the political, social, and economic conditions that produce and distribute health and illness across populations and jurisdictions, and examine the systems devoted to sustaining public health and to financing, governing, and delivering healthcare and related social services.

Areas of study include: 

• Comparative health policy and systems
• Public health policy
• Healthcare policy
• Health technology policy

Faculty lead: Lianne Jeffs

Students will explore organizational behaviour, organizational theory, strategic management, implementation science, sociology, and industrial-organizational psychology to understand the organization of health services and the impact of management and organizational practices on performance. This highly interdisciplinary field will explore diverse topic areas including how healthcare organizations are managed, leadership, healthcare practitioners, patient safety and quality of care, team functioning, organizational change, inter-organizational relationships and networks, governance, and evidence-based management.

Areas of study include: 

• Health practitioner outcomes (e.g. burnout, turnover)
• Motivation and leadership in HSR organizations
• Strategic decision making
• Change implementation

Faculty lead: Kelly Smith & Patricia Trbovich

The Health Services Outcomes and Evaluation emphasis draws upon several academic disciplines including epidemiology, program evaluation, and economics to systematically examine the impacts of health services on the health status of various populations. Students should have demonstrated knowledge of quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods, primary data collection and secondary data sources, and the strengths, weaknesses and appropriate application of different research designs and data analysis strategies.

Areas of study include: 

• Program evaluation
• Comparative effectiveness, safety, economic and other outcomes of health systems, services & programs 
• Methods for health services research 

Faculty lead: Zahra Shakeri

The Health Systems Artificial Intelligence (AI) emphasis is designed to prepare graduates to significantly contribute to the advancement of AI in health and healthcare.  The emphasis will equip students with the necessary foundational knowledge, literacy,  and skills to bridge the gap between the rapid advancements in AI and its application to meet healthcare needs. Within this highly emerging emphasis, students will learn foundational concepts, research methods, and ethics related to AI in health.

Areas of study include: 

• Health data mining and data science
• Multimodal learning and knowledge representation learning in healthcare
• AI in population and public health, public health surveillance
• Health AI Deployment and AutoML
• AI enable operational efficiency in a healthcare system
• Ethics and policies of AI in health

Faculty lead: David Naimark & Petros Pechlivanoglou

Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is an interdisciplinary field that advances and applies theories, concepts and methods in order to inform decision-makers on the introduction, use, and dissemination of health technology. The HTA emphasis encompasses quantitative and qualitative methods to equip students with skills within the main pillars of HTA to be able to critically analyze health policy issues related to health technology. 

Areas of study include: 

• Evidence synthesis
• Economic evaluation
• Social, legal and ethical consequences of emerging technologies