Course Descriptions

Health Care Management Course Descriptions 

The courses listed below are for the Graduate Certificate in Healthcare management, and the Master of Science in Healthcare Management. 

MGT 502 – Independent Study
Independent study allows a student to work one-on-one with a faculty member on selected topic(s) of interest. Registering for independent study requires pre-approval from the faculty member and the student's academic department. Variable and repetitive credit

MGT 506 – Special Topic Courses on Healthcare

• Ethics in Healthcare Organizations
  This course covers principles of clinical ethics as well as ethical principles that apply to businesses and other organizations that are connected to the healthcare field, and upon which good healthcare services depend. Students will determine and prioritize their personal values, and use this information along with selected readings to discuss ethical dilemmas associated with healthcare organization functions that have specific relevance to the policies and practices of those organizations. 2 credits 

MGT 509 – Commercialization Practicum
This hands-on practicum focuses on commercializing emerging technologies. Students learn the entrepreneurial development skills necessary to move a new technology from "mind to market." Student teams, working with emerging technologies held by OHSU, produce assessments and plans for bringing a new technology to market. Teams determine the commercial viability of a product by looking at the market and business channel options as well as the technical feasibility. Students gain an understanding of strategic considerations in the product commercialization process, how to determine market viability and technology and market timelines, application of intellectual property issues in the product commercialization process, and determination of how to reach the customer. M.S. in Management students may be able to extend work from this practicum into their MST 550 Capstone project. 3 credits

MGT 515 – Understanding the Medical Supply Chain
This course is about understanding the medical supply chain. Goal is to develop a strategic framework to analyze the design, planning, and operational decisions within the health care supply chains through supply chain management. Supply chain management as adopted in this course is defined as: the management of upstream and downstream relationship with suppliers and customers to deliver customer value at the least cost to the supply chain as a closed network. Successful supply chains will be those, which are driven by a constant search for win‐win strategies, based on mutual trust, reliability, and proactive responsiveness to ever changing customer needs. By the end of term, students will be able to look into any given medical supply chain such as an hospital supply chain and propose strategic optimal changes for implementation to cut costs while increase customer satisfaction using supply chain concepts and techniques which have been successfully implemented in other industries over the last decade. 4 credits

MGT 520 – Becoming an Effective Manager
This course develops participants' ability to understand and influence human behavior within technology-intensive organizations. Students learn to manage themselves, manage one-on-one relationships at work, manage their careers, and manage teams, all using ethical approaches to building coalitions and influencing others without formal authority. A major emphasis in the course is the practice of "reframing" - the ability to rethink and re-conceptualize a situation so as to widen one's perspective and available responses. Reframing is an important skill for managing people and projects in fast-changing organizations that are creating or using new technologies. Participants learn and practice setting and managing agendas (while juggling multiple demands), building and sustaining networks (while satisfying various stakeholders), and taking productive, ethical action (while honoring the values and culture of the organization). 4 credits

MGT 521 – Managing Human Resources
This course focuses on the professional management of people, including the fundamentals of recruiting, hiring, motivating, rewarding and appraising workers. The course focuses on how human resource (HR) management can create value and deliver results. Participants will examine the relationship between an organization's HR practices and the organization's effectiveness and competitive success. HR systems must be designed to fit each organization and group of people; all managers must know and practice good HR management for the organization to be successful. After completing the course, students will have mastered a variety of best practices for managing people at work. 3 credits

MGT 522 – Influencing Change in Organizations
Change is inevitable, and this course examines approaches for making organizational change more effective. Through an examination of change theory, practices, and philosophies, students develop an understanding of change processes, diagnose change issues in organizations, and gain practical skills for managing and leading change. This course requires active participation and willingness to participate and observe change efforts at the individual, group and/or organizational level.
Taking MGT 520 first is recommended. 3 credits

MGT 523 –New Product Development
This course is aimed at managing innovation and creativity while at the same time achieving reliable robust products that hit market objectives aligned with the company's business strategy. Learning how to bring new products to market that hit pricing/cost targets, on a predictable competitive launch date, with winning performance criteria, is the primary goal for this class. By the end of the course, students will be able to put together a product concept definition, carry out a pro forma financial analysis, and produce a product specification. Additional topics include identifying and managing the technological and programmatic risks associated with a new product, and understanding the trade-off between cycle time and product quality risks. 4 credits

MGT 541 – Leadership and Communication Skills
A person with well-developed interpersonal communication skills will naturally assume a leadership role. Effective interpersonal communication is a core competency for leading and influencing others. Students develop skills such as transparency, authenticity, integrity, collaboration, coaching, mentoring, engaging conflict, experimenting with small groups, bringing others on board, developing networks, identifying and enlisting stakeholders and developing shared vision and action plans.
3 credits

MGT 553 – Capstone Project in Healthcare I
This course, taught over two terms, integrates all of the learning acquired in the MS program. In this course students will apply concepts in finance, innovation, strategy, project management, policy, human behaviors, negotiation, entrepreneurship, team dynamics, and other concepts. Students work in teams with a sponsor to develop a business model and business plan for a new venture within a non-profit organization. 2 credits

MGT 554 – Capstone Project in Healthcare II
This course is a continuation of MGT 553.  3 credits

MGT 560 – The Organization, Financing, and History of Healthcare Delivery in the United States
There are increasing demands for administrators and managers who understand the complexities of the healthcare field and can provide effective leadership in these organizations. Besides specialized knowledge needed for a particular service area, or product line, each manager must understand the broader environment in which they work. This course provides a historical context for the current system: the current economic drivers, political pressures, ethical issues, and the roles of insurance and pharmaceutical companies. In addition, the course introduces students to the technological changes - both administrative and clinical - that will influence service delivery. Finally, a section of the course focuses on important issues in healthcare that influence the field at the time the course is presented. 4 credits

MGT 561 – Financial Accounting for Health Care Professionals
Principles of managerial and financial accounting are developed and used to examine difficult strategic and operational decisions confronting healthcare professionals. The course provides the healthcare decision maker with the necessary tools in managerial and financial accounting theory and concepts to make better financial management decisions on the job, as well as to make sound judgments regarding financial analyses performed by others. Topics include the interpretation of the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statements, with a particular concern for how to analyze these statements, using financial ratios and other analytic tools. Students acquire an understanding of the complexities of cost behavior. The financial management decision-making processes addressed include financial projections, cost behavior, cost-volume-profit analyses, special decisions such as make-or-buy, costing, cost allocation and pricing. Students gain an enhanced conceptual and technical understanding of the managerial planning and control process, including strategic planning, operational budgeting, and capital budgeting and net present value analysis. 4 credits

MGT 562 – Health Care Program Management
This course focuses on the skills and tools needed to manage and develop a health care program, with detailed emphasis on business planning, program design, scheduling, and resource management, including human resources, capital equipment, and software infrastructure. Students gain an understanding of the basic tools of project management and how, when, and where those tools may apply to health care improvement or development projects. Upon completion of the course students will be able to establish a project plan that will permit the successful meeting of the objectives within the cost, time and available resource constraints. 4 credits

MGT 563 – The Regulation and Legislation of Health Care Delivery
The course reviews how governmental and non-governmental organizations influence health care delivery. Special emphasis is placed on current regulatory and legislative initiatives. Participants gain an increased understanding of the federal and state regulatory/reporting framework within which healthcare is delivered and the role of accreditation bodies within that framework. The course provides examples of the evolution of new legislative initiatives, both at the federal and state level, in order to demonstrate the complexity and impact of regulatory oversight on healthcare delivery. Guest lectures provide the perspectives of experienced authorities in areas of Risk Management, Legislation, Environmental Safety, Healthcare Law, Internal Audit, Medicare Reimbursement, and Healthcare Compliance. 4 credits

MGT 564 – Business Planning and Strategy in the Health Care Industry
The strategic management and planning of health care functional units, clinics and hospitals in today's fast-changing technology intensive environments is extremely challenging. The class focuses on analyzing, planning, decision-making, formulation of strategy and its implementation in a world where "growing" today's organization into an essentially unknowable future is essential for long-term success. The course examines the major drivers towards change in the health care environment, approaches to empowering the consumer in health care management, and the changing value proposition for health care. Students examine potential scenarios for the future of health care, the potential major drivers, and the question of who the "customer" really is in health care. Invited speakers who are strategic decision makers in the health care industry share their expertise with the class. 4 credits

MGT 565 – Managing People in Healthcare Organizations
This course will enable the new and experienced manager to effectively understand and work within the competitive environment of hiring and keeping health care workers.  We will examine the legal, ethical, social and management issues in the health care workplace.  Specifically the course will focus on employment issues such as job description, hiring and keeping various types of employees functioning in an optimal fashion. Growth and development of employees and careers will be examined in training, performance management and career stages.  Compensation and recognition methods and strategies will be explored in relationship to satisfaction and productivity.  The focus will be on acquiring current best practices and evidence based knowledge that allows the manger to develop sound skills.  Finally the meaning of work and the work of managing people will be explored from several viewpoints from a research and effectiveness lens.  3 credits

MGT 566 – Health Care Information Systems Management
This course is aimed at health professionals, both administrators and health care providers, who more and more find themselves needing to understand how to manage the high technology systems, tools and products that have become such an integral part of the health delivery spectrum. Today's health practitioner has to use technology to find medical information and use accounting systems, personnel systems, health insurance company systems, inventory systems, patient billing systems, purchasing systems, as well as input and retrieve data. This course focuses on the business of health care and how to understand, use and manage technology and systems in a medical environment. The overall goal is to give students a conceptual framework for understanding how to use technology to reduce costs and improve productivity, efficiency and effectiveness in their current and future work situations. 4 credits

MGT 567– Health Care Technology - New Medical Advances
Highlighting the role of technology and its influence on treatment and health care delivery in the US, this course includes the role of medical technology suppliers in shaping delivery as well as decision-making and strategy for acquisition of new technology. 4 credits

MGT 568 – New Trends in Health Care Delivery
This course surveys timely topics in health care (e.g. Compliance, Patients Rights, Patient Safety, health care and he Internet, B to B Internet transactions, etc.). It is taught by a specialist in the appropriate field and focuses on practical knowledge needed by managers. 2-4 credits

MGT 569 – Healthcare Marketing
This course will expose healthcare managers to marketing fundamentals and how they are/can be applied in healthcare organizations. Course content covers essential marketing tools and demonstration of their application in the healthcare environment through case studies and guest speakers. This course will enable students to: obtain a working knowledge of marketing fundamentals; demonstrate critical thinking skills to construct logical data-driven arguments in support of their marketing plan; and learn the nuances of healthcare marketing and the role it plays in various types of healthcare organizations. After completion students will be able to: understand the role of marketing within healthcare organizations; create and launch customer-driven products and services; and critically analyze & improve effectiveness of marketing campaigns. 4 credits

MGT 570 – Operations Management for Healthcare
In its groundbreaking report Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001), the Institute of Medicine highlighted the need for more attention to care processes and a systems approach to healthcare delivery.  This course is designed to explore the progress that has been made and the challenges that remain in bringing the concepts, practices and tools of operations management to the healthcare industry.  In addition to covering the basics of operations management students in this course will explore the significant environmental trends in the healthcare industry through a series of case studies to develop an understanding of strategic operations management and its integration into processes in the healthcare industry. 4 credits

MGT 572 – Financial Management for Healthcare
This course offers a survey of financial management concepts intended to prepare you with a basic background of modern corporate finance, the decision-making process used by financial managers of large and growing corporations, and the analytical tools to measure achievement of financial and operational objectives that result from an integrated structural approach. Topics include a review of accounting statements and cash flows, value and capital budgeting, risk and the capital asset pricing model, capital structure, leverage, dividend policy, long-term debt financing, short-term financial planning, cash and credit management, performance management and economic value added. Special topics include mergers and acquisitions, defensive tactics, and financial distress. Prerequisite: MGT 571. 4 credits

MGT 590 – Effective Business Writing for Management
Tailored to meet the individual writing needs of management professionals, this course reviews and practices standard conventions in grammar and punctuation, and innovative stylistics using a highly interactive format. The course addresses both electronic (email) and traditional (letter, summary, report) managerial writing tasks with the goal of clearer, more concise business communication. For native speakers of English and bilinguals with a native-level of written English. 1 credit