PHPS40860 Principles of Health Financing and Management

Academic Year 2022/2023

Do you think healthcare is a market? How do countries and individuals pay for healthcare? How much should we expend on healthcare? Does healthcare expenditure correlate with health outcomes? Are healthcare providers the best agents for their patients? What is low-value medicine? Is a Laissez-faire leadership style desirable in an operating room? Is organizational culture relevant to patients? These are some questions this introductory course aims for students to reflect on. We allocate six weeks to Principles of Health financing and six to Principles of Health Management.

(1) The Health Financing component is specifically tailored to non-economists. It provides:
- an overview of the characteristics of the health industry under the lenses of a market economy;
- an introduction to the main concepts in economics (opportunity cost, equity, efficiency, scarcity);
- an introduction to the existent systems that finance health care, their performance in relation to efficiency, equity and quality and their impact on human resources development in healthcare, research and innovation, and access to new technologies.

(2) Principles of Management
-Introduction to the different types of organizational cultures in healthcare, leadership styles and quality of care, fragmentation of health services and the design of human-centred health services.

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Curricular information is subject to change

Learning Outcomes:

At the end of the module, students will:
- Critically appraise health financing systems and how they perform in relation to efficiency, equity and quality.
Apply efficiency, equity, human capital development principles and cost containment strategies to existing Health Financing systems.
- Analyse healthcare settings organizational culture, leadership styles and their influence on healthcare outcomes, and apply to real-world cases how organizational culture and leadership styles influence performance in complex systems
-Apply design thinking to health service challenges.

Indicative Module Content:

- The module circle around three themes: a) Understanding the dynamics of the market applied to the health sector b) cost containment and efficiency strategies, including economic evaluations of health programs and c) Principles of leadership, teamwork, and change in the healthcare setting.
The module includes a design thinking seminar ( pass component, mandatory).

Student Effort Hours: 
Student Effort Type Hours
Lectures

24
Specified Learning Activities

12
Autonomous Student Learning

70
Total

106
Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
The module combine group work, interactive debates, students presentations and peer-feedback assessment.
Learning is mainly through cases in which students need to apply theoretical knowledge to real-life cases.
The expectation is that students will have active participation in class. 
Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 
Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Open Book Exam Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade
Group Project: Health Financing debate & discussions (class & forum) Week 6 n/a Standard conversion grade scale 40% No

30
Portfolio: Students need to submit a portfolio with the cases studied during the health management block. Coursework (End of Trimester) n/a Standard conversion grade scale 40% Yes

30
Examination: Written exam. Write short notes on cases studied during the module. 2 hour End of Trimester Exam Yes Standard conversion grade scale 40% Yes

40

Carry forward of passed components
No
 
Remediation Type Remediation Timing
In-Module Resit Prior to relevant Programme Exam Board
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 
Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Group/class feedback, post-assessment
• Online automated feedback
• Self-assessment activities

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Feedback will be provided to the group after the mid-term assignment and after the exam. Self -assessment activities and peer review activities will be done after class activities.

Name Role
Assoc Professor Mary Codd Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Ms Ruth Mullally Lecturer / Co-Lecturer