79065 - Management Systems in Healthcare

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course student is introduced to the principles of quality management in healthcare organizations. By the end of the course, the student is able to: adopt a process perspective to quality management and improvement; understand variation in processes; examine and critique continuous improvement approaches; understand the importance of quality management in healthcare organizations; discuss and critically asses examples of implementations of lean management in healthcare; use of improvement tools; understand the role of performance measurement in continuous improvement; reconcile attempts to incremental and radical innovation in healthcare.

Course contents

The evolution of organizational patterns in healthcare organizations: medarchy, bureaucracy, New Public Management, governance.

The control function.

Principles underpinning the effective design of control systems.

Budgetary control.

Financial control: financial statements and financial ratios.

The management control cycle: planning, budgeting, performance measurement, reporting.

Multi-dimensional performance control.

Readings/Bibliography

Carr M., Beck M. (2022), Healthcare Management Control, London and New York: Routledge.

Additional readings made available by the instructor.

Teaching methods

The learning approach combines lectures, case discussions and role plays, group work and independent study. Out of the 125 hours of work earmarked for this module, students are expected to allocate:

* 30 hours to classroom activities

* 20 hours to graded and ungraded group assignments

* 75 hours to independent study

Cases and role plays are meant to bring a chunk of the real world into the classroom, where students can examine the situation, agree on the nature of the problem, explore optional approaches to dealing with it, and discuss the consequences of alternative courses of action.

Assessment methods

ATTENDING STUDENTS

For attending students, the assessment of learning is based on two components:

* group assignment weighting up to 8/30s, i.e. 25% of the final grade;

* final written exam (three open-ended questions out of four)weighting up to 24/30s, i.e. 75% of the final grade.

The status of attending student and the points you earned with the group assignment are unaffected up until September 2024 in case you:

* withdraw from the exam;

* fail the exam;

* reject the grade.

NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS

For non-attending students, the assessment of learning is based on a final written exam (four open-ended questions out of four) weighting up to 32/30s, i.e. 100% of the final grade.

GRADING SYSTEM

* < 18 = fail; the student cannot apply the basic concepts of the module to real-world problems

* 18 - 22 = fair; the student is able to apply the basic concepts of the module mechanically to real-world problems, but fails to understand how to use them for decision-making

* 23 - 26 = good; the student applies the concepts learnt during the module to real-world problems and demonstrates a somewhat critical perspective

* 27 - 30 = very good: the student applies the concepts learnt during the module to real problems, demonstrates a critical perspective, suggests courses of actions and presents his or her ideas in a convincing way

* 30 hons. = excellent: the student applies the concepts learnt during the module to real-world problems, demonstrates a critical perspective, suggests courses of actions, presents his or her ideas in a convincing way and demonstrates the ability to link different disciplinary areas

Office hours

See the website of Luca Giovanni Carlo Brusati