Healthcare Studies

This course will introduce the students to the health care industry, and will consist of lectures, readings, discussions, and visiting professionals. While the principal goal will be to inform students of the necessary skills needed to succeed in the health care field, a secondary goal will have the student be able to articulately describe the background to almost any article relating to the challenges of national health care.

This course is intended to provide the opportunity to offer courses in health care studies that would not normally be a part of the Husson curriculum. As such the topics will depend upon the interests of students and faculty.

This course will introduce junior year students to the complexity of healthcare organizations and how they are managed. An overview of the historical development of the modern healthcare organization, as well as the contemporary management roles and functions within them, will be reviewed. Measuring performance and quality improvement will also be taught. The importance of the roles of physicians, nurses, as well as other professionals and support staff will be highlighted. Theories of healthcare leadership will also be explored.

This course will introduce senior Health Care Studies students to beginning healthcare economics and its influence on health policy. The course will emphasize the economic issues of scarcity, choice, supply and demand, marginal analysis, substitutes, and externalities as they relate to health care policies. National health insurance, as a rapidly evolving idea for the future, will also be analyzed and evaluated.

This course offers the students experiences in a work and/or research environment dedicated to health care or public health. Each student chooses and contacts a hospital, clinic, health center, public health department or health care business and spends a total of 100 hours in that setting. Activities will include training/orientation, work on projects relevant to the mission of the agency, observation of agency work processes, and other assigned work from the site liaison. Students keep daily journals and meet three times during the semester for training and to share their experiences.