Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 1 session / week, 2 hours / session
Description
Health care has been characterized as in crisis, or at least in need of addresses critical performance issues in the United States and globally. Seminar on Health Care Systems Innovation applies a systems perspective to understand health care delivery today, its stakeholders and problems as well as opportunities. Students will be introduced to the ‘systems perspective’ that has been used successfully in industries that include automobile manufacturing, air traffic control, telecommunications, utilities, etc., to address the introduction of new processes, technologies and strategies to improve overall health outcomes. This seminar will incorporate a multidisciplinary approach that will integrate medicine, social and behavioral sciences, operations research and management as well as engineering perspectives to stimulate new thinking in the practice, process and delivery of health care. Students are assigned to teams to work on a semester-long group project, in collaboration with staff of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, MA. The project will incorporate insights gained from topics covered in class.
Requirements and Grading
Students will be required to complete assigned readings and actively participate as well as meaningfully contribute to class discussions. In addition, students will be assigned to teams to examine a specific health care problem, apply concepts from class discussions and readings and present a group presentation and paper. Topics are defined at the beginning of the course.
Calendar
| SES # | LECTURE TOPICS AND INSTRUCTORS |
|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction - Joseph Coughlin |
| 2 | Health care systems from a health policy perspective - Stan Finkelstein |
| 3 | Health care systems from an engineering systems perspective - Joel Moses |
| 4 | Performance measures in health care - Stan Finkelstein |
| 5 | Student midterm presentations and class discussion |
| 6 | Systems perspectives on safety - Joseph Coughlin and guest Nancy Leveson |
| 7 | Innovator’s prescription - Video presentation: Clayton M. Christensen |
| 8 | Managing process change - Guest Steven J. Spear |
| 9 | Health care and information technology - Guest Peter Szolovits |
| 10 | Variation and uncertainty in clinical decision I - Guests Steven J. Spear and Karen Sepucha |
| 11 | Variation and uncertainty in clinical decision II - Guest Karen Sepucha |
| 12 | Student final presentations and class discussion |
