Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Healthcare Economics and Management online

This course provides students with an introduction to basic accounting fundamentals and skills necessary to analyze financial information of firms from a decision-maker perspective. Financial information is presented in the form of financial statements, principally, the income statement, balance sheet, statement of retained earnings, and cash flow statement. We will discuss how accountants organize the results of business transactions and report them to external users who will then use the reports to make decisions.

This course will help students to develop a comprehensive analysis of the micro and macroeconomic forces that shape and modify our economy. Supply and Demand, Revenue and Cost, wages, employment, regulations and taxation are discussed as they affect production, consumption, investment, trade, prices, quantities, profits, inequality, and the economy as a whole.

A study of the basic principles and practices of financial management of private (as opposed to government owned or affiliated) business operations. The principles and models discussed in the course can be equally applied to publicly listed companies as well as privately owned ones. This course includes an operational framework for financial analysis, financial planning including capital budgeting, along with valuation analysis and cost of capital. The basic framework of analysis used is that of risk and return, emphasizing that the objective of the firm is to maximize shareholder return, subject to satisfying societal and other stakeholder concerns.

The main objective of this course is to introduce the basic statistical concepts and tools in order to form the foundation through which students can analyze data used for decision-making. The course is application-oriented and focuses on topics that are useful in business and industry such as descriptive statistics, probability, conceptual modeling, and problem formulation and decision analysis. The course prepares students to develop an understanding of how to deal with new trends in the industry such as big data and data mining.

This course takes a broad-based look at management and organizations in order to provide students with the building blocks needed for more advanced classes in the program. It exposes students to the history of management thought and to some of the most influential organizational theories. It uses insights from multiple disciplines such as economics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and political economy and offers frameworks for analyzing modern organizations and current managerial practices. The course concludes with a discussion of contemporary issues in management.

Marketing is viewed as a system designed to create, capture, distribute, and communicate value to consumers and businesses. The course emphasizes the managerial approach to developing marketing strategy through analyses of business conditions, customers, and competitors. Emphasis is given to understanding buyer motivations, behaviors, and contexts as the basis for marketing decisions.

This course deals with the environment in which international business is conducted, including economic and financial relations, environmental and strategic factors that affect business operations within different nations. Topics include international trade, the balance of payment, exchange rate determination, hedging of foreign exchange exposure, tariffs and other trade restrictions, economic development, economic integration, and international economic organizations within different nations. Also reviewed are the economic, political and cultural conditions that influence international business.

Students may choose to investigate an issue at their place of work, undertake research that will lead them to new fields, or create proposals for business models or start-ups. The capstone experience will provide students with direct exposure into various industries and also serve as a basis for planning and advancement. Finally, the course will also help MBA candidates establish their professional identities through reflective assignments and self-assessments as guided by their instructor. The course is taken in the MBA student’s last semester, or after completing the majority of courses.

The course is designed to offer management accounting and costing tools for decision-making and business strategy. Some examples of these tools are: cost-volume-profit analysis, product costing, incremental analysis, investment and operational budgeting, and standard costing. Real world cases and examples will be used extensively. Students will learn how financial and non-financial information can be integrated in areas such as strategic positioning and value-chain analysis to gain and enhance competitive advantage in the market place.

The course studies strategic management from the perspective of environmental sustainability, with an emphasis on the impact of innovation on corporate social responsibility. Sustainable Strategic Management refers to strategic management policies and processes that seek competitive advantages consistent with a core value of environmental sustainability. Firms that pursue sustainable strategic management base the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of their strategies on an analysis of the ecological issues they face, the values they hold that support sustainability, and the ecological interests of their stakeholders.

Managers need resources to succeed, and successful managers tend to negotiate well to give themselves the best chance to succeed. They negotiate with customers and suppliers for better prices, and they negotiate with internal functions to get better support and key resources to deliver value to both internal and external stakeholders. As managers move up the corporate ladder, they negotiate with their team members for better commitment and they negotiate with their superiors for domain independence. This course will focus on managers’ need to influence others, manage conflict, and negotiate agreements in a wide range of business scenarios both within and outside the organization. Students will be introduced to basic theories of negotiation, practices and frameworks of negotiation. Students will be provided with opportunities to reshape their understanding of negotiation, discover their own negotiation styles, and apply negotiation principles to critical issues. The course takes a view that negotiation is also a life skill that comes in handy in career growth and addresses the managers need to understand that influencing often occurs without formal power or authority. The course uses a combination of lectures, discussions, role-play exercises, cases, and exams.

This course is an introduction to the fundamental concepts and economic principles that are relevant to decision making for health care managers. It is intended to provide students an overview of the basic concepts and principles of managerial decision making and will show the linkages of economics with other business functions, while maintaining a focus on the heart of managerial economics: the micro-economic theory of the behavior of consumers and firms in competitive markets. Heavy emphasis is placed on a working knowledge of those ideas and concepts and their applications on the health care industry. Through lectures, class discussions, homework assignments and case analyses, the students will learn how the application of economic theory and concepts helps health care managers to make allocation decisions that are in the best economic interests of their organizations.

Health Economics & Policy studies the economic models explaining behavior of patients, physicians, and other stakeholders in the U.S. healthcare system. In addition, it broadly introduces the quantitative techniques used in evaluating how local, state, and federal government health laws and interventions influence health outcomes. The course then provides a literature review on a number of policies which substantially influenced population health among different population groups. This course provides information on the U.S. healthcare system.

The course is to introduce financial management concepts to the healthcare organization. This course will introduce the topics of financial and managerial accounting and finance as they apply to the provision of health care services. It applies accounting, financial and administrative knowledge to the management of the aforementioned institutions. In this context, the students will acquire knowledge and application in areas such as financial statements and their analysis, short term management of assets and debts, capital structure, cost of capital, financial prediction, financial condition analysis, capital budgeting and sensitivity analysis.

This course provides a broad overview of the many facets of leadership, ethics, and change management in business, government, and other organizational settings. The course also provides an integrated analysis of the major concepts, theories and functional viewpoints that are shaping today’s dramatically changing business environment. Emphasis is placed upon four areas: first, to assess and manage one’s own leadership style; second, to develop practical leadership skills and insights that will help build one’s career and drive organization goals; third, to create awareness and act ethically while navigating through multiple and often conflicting contemporary business goals; and fourth, to understand the psychology of change and change model applications. Students will benefit by developing ethical leadership and change management plans required in meeting modern-day organizational challenges relative to competition, innovation, power and politics, career advancement, social responsibility and global concerns.

This course combines theories and perspectives from economics, psychology, sociology, and statistics, to understand how individuals make healthcare related decisions. Marketing theory guides healthcare practitioners and public policy by focusing on a variety of important topics including the development and branding of drugs and generics, provider service quality, pricing of pharmaceutical, medical devices, and drugs, healthcare communications, DTC (Direct To Consumer) and PSA (Public Service Advertising), social contagion effects, and network effects in multisided markets.