Health Care Administration

This course will examine critical issues confronting health care administration, focusing on the public and not-for-profit sectors. Readings and discussions will cover a broad range of topics and will include comparisons of public and private bureaucracies. Students will analyze theoretical questions of health care administration and will address the real-world experience of health care employees, both managers and staff. Students will examine and evaluate academic literature on current and future trends in health care human resources, including: evaluation of employee performance and motivation of employees; health care financing, including the impact of managed care and the role of third party payers; union-management relations and collective bargaining; quality improvement in health care; training and staff-development; the nursing shortage; organizational justice; and diversity management. Students will draw on both their practical experience and the scholarly literature discussed in the course to develop a research proposal that addresses an administrative challenge relevant to their work.