HSM - 636 Quality, Safety & Operational Improvement in Healthcare

This course provides students with the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to apply systems thinking, quantitative methods, and other tools to increase the capacity for quality and operational improvements in health care organizations. Improvement of quality, safety, operational, and financial outcomes is the main role of the health care leader, and is a result of effective understanding and use of data and insights, and motivating change among multi-disciplinary stakeholders. Methodologies, tools and approaches to transform data into usable insights will be presented, including the effective use of metrics and dashboards. Students will appreciate the utility of these for analyzing systems, improving processes, and enhancing quality and patient safety. Emphasis is placed on students’ abilities to work with managers and clinicians to analyze problems, identify possible solutions, implement process improvements, and communicate with stakeholders in non-technical terms. The course uses a combination of learning methods, including group discussion, multi-media, and operational projects. Challenging assignments in real health care settings-such as emergency department throughput, operating room logistics, and mortality and complication improvements -give students the opportunity to apply what they are learning. Prerequisite: HSM 606 Retake Counts for Credit: No. Pass/No Pass Grading Allowed: No. Credit(s): 4