Core Courses and Specializations

Through examining structures, policies, strategies, and managerial approaches of both public and private global actors (WHO, World Bank, Foundations such ad Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or the Global Fund, and Non-Governmental Organizations), the GH&D specialization prepares students to become active actors in the achievement of equity in health for people worldwide. This Specialization provides students with an overview of challenges in the changing global scene in health-related policy making and management at the global level. It allows students to understand the key issues of healthcare systems, policies and management in low-income and emerging countries, and to develop most relevant skills to engage with international institutions and transnational non-state actors (including public-private partnerships, global philanthropies, corporations and non-governmental organizations).

If the students choose this specialization, they are likely to pursue a career in international organizations and institutions (e.g. the WHO), International NGOs, Global partnerships and other organizations involved in GH&D issues.

Courses

The GH&D specialization includes the following courses:

•  Global Strategies and Governance for Health: introduces students to global health-related issues, examines the structure, policies, and strategies of both public and private (profit and non-profit) global actors, and their roles in determining changes in health systems and people’s access to health services, and gives you an overview of the challenges any global health manager has to face
• Health Management and Policies in Low Income Countries and Emerging Economies: provides the students with an overview of the patterns and key issues of health systems and policies in low-income countries and emerging economies, with an emphasis on critical assessment of current and future policy options and issues and on assessing alternative methods of raising revenue to funding health care in low-income countries and emerging economies
• Managing Global Health Challenges: presents to the students and analyses a number of challenging global health issues from a technical and managerial point of view, based mainly on external experts’ and/or faculty members’ direct experience. Topics include: global food system, challenges of infectious diseases, role of civil society in shaping global health policy-making, global challenge of antibiotic resistance, environment and health, international humanitarian missions, mother and child health, health care services and initiatives for migrants’ health, managing health in conflicts
• International Programme Design, Management, and Evaluation: introduces the students to project cycle management to enable them to prepare logical frameworks and result frameworks, to identify and formulate projects through a participatory approach, to define project documents and to assess their quality. The course includes also a general introduction to development cooperation and a critical analysis of development cooperation instruments
• Evidence-Based Health Policy Evaluation: critically evaluates the impact of different policy frameworks on variables such as individual health and wealth and provides the students with the main tools for the ex-post evaluation of policy interventions, discussing the basic concepts of policy evaluation by analysing case studies from the real world, with a focus on low income countries
• Management Issues in International Organizations: discusses managerial hard and soft skills, including team working, presentations and public speaking, data concepts and analysis, problem solving, capacity building, project management and risk management, in international organizations, using different case-studies.

The HCM specialization is designed to develop managerial competences and create leaders and managers prepared to tackle all kinds of challenges. The courses focus on the hard skills for this sector: strategic planning, budgeting and performance measurement, organizational behaviour and design, quality development, IT management, operations management, human resource management, financial management, and innovation implementation.

Students will also gain a deep understanding of the soft skills required to be successful managers in healthcare environments, such as change management practices, group leadership, management of interpersonal relationships, and individual appraisal.

The specialization is designed with a particular attention to the specificities of hospitals, primary care organizations, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, health maintenance organizations, and other integrated healthcare delivery systems, which are the target of future career for those who choose this specialization.

Courses

The HCM specialization includes the following courses:

• Performance Measurement & Management Control for Healthcare Services: analyzes the characteristics of management control in various healthcare sector activities, and emphasizes performance management and measurement as a framework for decision-making processes. Students will be able to learn how to assist institutions in using control systems to accomplish desired strategic goals.
  
  
• Consulting Skills for Value Creation and Change Management in healthcare : aims at presenting an overview of consultants' toolkit for the management of a client in the healthcare sector, with a focus on value creation and change management issues. It covers the topics of running a project, such as structuring and problem solving approach, developing and delivering final recommendations, managing an engagement tackles
• Healthcare Marketing and Communication: addresses the role of marketing and communication in healthcare organizations, and outlines the conceptual tools used to analyze need and demand, to identify the market segments to be served and to shape supply along patterns suitable to ensure the achievement of organizational goals versus demand
• Quality and Operations Management: aims to give the students a theoretical framework regarding the definition and measurement of quality in healthcare, and introduces traditional and innovative quality improvement techniques including credentialing, accreditation, education, continuous quality improvement, system design, practice guidelines, and performance reports. The course focuses particularly on operations management issues
• Insurance Policy and Management: provides an overview on the current scenario of the private health insurance industry, with a focus on individual and collective health policies, innovative tools in the insurance industry (underwritings, app, digitalization) and designing innovative private health insurance product in different contexts
• Digital Health, Big Data and Data Science: analyzes (i) the practice of leveraging the information and communication technology (ICT) to connect caregivers, healthcare systems, healthcare professionals, hospitals and patients and to draw integrated internal and external information flows; (ii) the potential, challenges and specificities of the application of Big Data in the healthcare sector and their promise of supporting a wide array of functions in the healthcare sector, from population health management, to personalized medicine, from clinical decision support to better surveillance
• Long Term Care Sector: policy and management issues: discusses (i) long-term care systems and reforms, including funding options and (ii) managerial issues in managing services for the elderly, with a focus on integration between health and social care services, home care delivery, the impact of digital revolution

The P&MT specialization is focused on the dynamics of different industries (pharmaceuticals, biopharmaceuticals and other technologies produced through biotechnological processes, medical devices and other medical technologies). Students learn about the regulatory environment, management issues and tools to assess and promote added value of emerging technologies: HTA (Health Technology Assessment), economic evaluation, pricing strategies, stakeholders’ management and marketing strategy.

Students choosing this specialization are likely to find positions in pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, medical technology companies or consulting firms in areas such as Health Economics and Outcome Research, Market Access, Marketing Strategy, Public Affairs.

Courses 

The P&MT specialization includes the following courses:

• Pharmaceutical Policy and Management: provides students with an understanding of the dynamics of the pharmaceutical market from both the regulatory authorities’ and the pharmaceutical companies’ perspectives, discussing the pharmaceutical market trends, the innovation process in the pharmaceutical industry, the impact of drugs on healthcare systems and organization and the pharmaceutical market regulation
• Health Economics of Medical Technologies: aims at illustrating the peculiarities of the industry of medical devices, how the sector is regulated, what are the characteristics of medical devices vis-à-vis other technologies, namely drugs, and the implication of their characteristics when assessed, and how functions such as Market Access, Government Affairs, Health Economics & HTA are shaped within medical devices companies
• Advanced Economic Evaluation of Health Care Programmes (Modelling): provides the students with an introduction to the concepts and methods of decision-analysis and modelling to support economic evaluation of health care programmes. Simpler (Decision Trees) and more complex (Markov Models) models are illustrated and discussed within the scope of taking decisions under conditions of uncertainty
• Market Access for Pharmaceuticals and Medical Technologies: provides the students with an understanding of market access strategy and tools for pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Market access strategies activities are discussed through case-studies and throughout different phases: early development and late development, market launch, and post launch
• Marketing Strategy for Pharmaceuticals and Medical Technologies: provides a strong foundation in strategic marketing planning in markets, such as medical technology and pharmaceuticals, where the customer is the healthcare system, delivering it in an interactive manner, connecting concepts and models with application to case-studies
• Digital Health, Big Data and Data Science: analyses (i) the practice of leveraging the information and communication technology (ICT) to connect caregivers, healthcare systems, health care professionals, hospitals and patients and to draw integrated internal and external information flows; (ii) the potential, challenges and specificities of the application of Big Data in the healthcare sector and their promise of supporting a wide array of functions in the health care sector, from population health management, to personalized medicine, from clinical decision support to better surveillance.