IHPME’s HSR MSc is designed for students interested in advancing their training in health services research theory and methodologies. HSR is an internationally recognized program that prepares graduates for leadership roles in academia, research, policy, and planning in both the public and private sectors.
HSR master’s students can choose between the thesis-based and course-based MSc:
Thesis-based MSc
The thesis stream requires that you are self-motivated as you independently conduct research and write a thesis. While many thesis-based MSc graduates choose not to pursue a PhD, this option is the most direct pathway for those who plan to continue into doctoral studies. The program is often completed in two years of full-time studies.
Studying with an Emphasis
HSR’s highly interdisciplinary program provides students the unique opportunity to focus their education on specific areas of study. Students can complete the thesis-based MSc in the following emphases or can choose to be in the general stream without an emphasis:
Faculty leads: 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 leads: 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 leads: 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 leads: Patricia Trbovich & Monika Kastner
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 leads: 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
Faculty lead: Kuan Liu
The General Stream is for students whose thesis topic does not clearly fit within one of the emphases. An emphasis will not appear on the student’s transcript. General stream students will complete the required 1.5 FCE courses that all MSc thesis-students complete and will also complete 3 half-course electives (1.5 FCE) instead of emphasis-required courses.
Course-based MSc
Students in the course-based MSc will broaden their understanding of health systems research. Course-based MSc students do not complete a thesis but are required to complete additional courses (10 half-courses in total). Course-based students do not select an emphasis.
The program is normally completed in one year of full-time studies.
Course-based faculty leads: Xiaolin Wei and Aviv Shachak
Finance Your Degree
At IHPME, we offer a variety of financial supports to help you succeed in our graduate programs.