Teaching

I teach a mix of health-care specific and general management courses. I am happy to share any/all of my material as well as the materials that others have shared with me. Please feel free to email me for access to these materials. My only request is that in exchange you make materials freely available to other instructors.

Undergraduate

Introduction to Healthcare Management This course will provide students with an understanding of the skills, knowledge and abilities needed to be successful leaders in the dynamic, complex and rewarding field of healthcare management. Topics include the economic, regulatory, political and social framework of the healthcare industry, as well as the roles and expectations of managers in planning, organizing, coordinating and overseeing the delivery of healthcare services. A broad spectrum of healthcare organizations and settings will be included with emphasis on practical relevance and interaction with local healthcare organizations. Link to syllabus

Human Resources for Competitive Advantage This course examines how human resource management aids in developing an organization’s competitive advantage. Emphasis is on the processes and activities used to formulate HR objectives, practices, and policies to meet the organizational needs and opportunities, guide and lead the change process, and evaluate the contributions of HR to organizational effectiveness. Emphasis is on human resources information systems (HRIS) and human resources data analytics. Link to syllabus

Master's (including Executive)

Health Economics Nearly 60 years ago Nobel Laureate, Kenneth Arrow, noted that many of the assumptions critical to traditional economics break down in the medical field. Issues such as the inability to observe quality, differences in available information, and prices that often exceed a consumer’s lifetime earnings all add a layer of complexity to the traditional microeconomic model. In this course we will systematically address how these complexities affect consumers and producers of health care. For each component of the health care value chain, we will ground the current incentive structure in economic theory, and then consider the empirical evidence to date. We will then analyze the implications to consumers, producers, and society at large, of potential organizational strategies and policy changes. Link to Syllabus

Healthcare Finance This course teaches the principles necessary for effective financial management in the healthcare industry and discusses the analyses used by managers to make strategic and operating decisions. It is intended to make administrators comfortable with managing the finances of the department or other entity for which they have responsibility. This course will also examine how healthcare services are financed under the US system and discuss recent innovations in delivery and payment models. Link to Syllabus

Analytics & Managerial Decision-Making Managers are continually confronted with the need to make significant decisions concerning the clinical, organizational and financial performance of a health organization. Data analysis is one tool that supports such decision-making. This course develops analytical skills to prepare health care managers to make informed, data-driven decisions. Topics will include introductory data and statistical exploration from basic descriptive statistics to population and market estimation, sampling design and analysis, prediction, simulation, and causal inference. The focus will be on conceptual understanding and presentation of data. Students will also have the option to learn how to implement analytical techniques in the “R” programming language. Link to Syllabus

Doctoral

Economic Foundations of Management As Oliver Williamson noted, much of neo-classical economics generalizes the firm as a ‘black box’ that converts inputs into outputs. While this can be a useful simplification, it conceals an enormous amount of complexity and heterogeneity. As most activity in the modern economy takes place within, or is at least facilitated by organizations, it is important to develop a deeper understanding of these actors. This course examines some of the central questions in management of organizations, with economic approaches as a starting point. The goal of this course is to develop an understanding of the key dynamics within and between organizations and the managerial implications of these insights. Among the sorts of questions we will explore are the following: How does individual knowledge aggregate to form collective capabilities? How do individual goals enhance or impede organizational performance? What do these perspectives on firms say about the scope of a firm’s activities? Note the gaps in the literature where you as a researcher can add to our understanding. Building on multiple disciplines including neoclassical economics, personnel economics, organization theory, and sociology, we will cover a variety of papers that make both theoretical and empirical contributions to the literature. We will discuss the particular papers and explore the broader “conversations” in the field of which these works are a part. Link to Syllabus

Organizational Economics of Health Care As most activity in the modern economy takes place within organizations, it is important to develop a deeper understanding of these actors. This is particularly relevant in health care where there is a highly differentiated division of labor, many decisions are made under a high level of uncertainty, and the boundaries of the firm are often opaque. The goal of this course is to develop an understanding of the key dynamics within and between health care organizations and the policy and managerial implications of these insights. Link to Syllabus