Course Descriptions - Healthcare Management Graduate Program
BMX 603 Cross-Cultural Healthcare (3 SH)
This summer course is experiential based and requires involvement and study in another cultural-setting for a three-week period. Students, under guidance from the instructor, explore values, methods, and outcomes of healthcare or the practice of biomedicine in a unique cultural setting. Differentiation of resources, social, psychological, and spiritual ideas contrasting the student’s personal culture with the explored culture are examined. Involvements with alternative medicine and healing practices are considered as are examination of traditional healthcare delivery methods in the studied culture. Cross-cultural settings may vary but frequently include trips to Guatemala, Honduras and/or Peru. A 3.0 GPA is required at the end of fall semester to be eligible to take BMX 603 the following summer.
HCM 630 Healthcare Management Capstone (3 SH)
This course integrates master’s prepared executive skills with the challenge of implementing a change process in a new role or setting. In addition to participating in discussion forums, the course involves literature review and reading, reflective and scholarly writing, and leading and evaluating a quality improvement project. The student will partner with a nurse-leader preceptor to implement a change project at either a higher level within the organization than the student’s current practice level, in a different setting than their current role or setting, or in a multidisciplinary setting. Working with the faculty and preceptor to apply content and approaches studied during the MSN program, all projects must include a system change with analysis of the system and ethical challenges, consideration of primary, secondary, and tertiary strategies to accomplish projected outcomes, interpretation of the financial impact of the project, evaluation of potential social, distributive and interactional justice issues, and integration of the nurse’s voice throughout the progression of the project. NOTE: Prerequisite is NURS 620
MOL 680 Sustainable Organizations for the Common Good (3 SH)
This course integrates three pillars of organizational management: management, leadership and stewardship for organizational effectiveness and serving the common good. It includes an eight-day residency designed to engage students as reflective practitioners and invite them to develop an openness to new ways of experiencing and thinking about the world through interactions and learning in a different setting and culture. A core value of the program is global citizenship, recognizing that organizations are interdependent and mutually accountable to local, national, and global communities; this suggests that a global perspective is important for today’s business and organizational leaders.
NURS 503 Practice Skills for Conflict Transformation (3 SH)
This course focuses on understanding conflict, and on the roles, skills, strategies, processes and personal awareness needed for reflective leaders/practitioners facilitating conflict transformation in interpersonal and small group settings. Participants will be asked to consider their personal responses to conflict and their professional roles and responsibilities in relation to conflict. The course will include an overview of basic processes of conflict transformation including negotiation, mediation, group facilitation, and circle processes among others. Students will practice/evaluate the skills of listening, issue identification, appreciative inquiry, nonviolent communication, methods for structuring conversation in group settings, and awareness of the impact of self on others. The course is delivered through online discussions, reading, case studies, and an on-campus component with interactive activities and role plays.
NURS 512 Knowledge Development: Epidemiology and Informatics (3 SH)
This course combines concepts from Epidemiology and Informatics in a manner that allows the student to simultaneously apply content from both areas in an ongoing case study. Students will develop competence in the application of epidemiological tools and processes such as surveillance, incidence and prevalence, mapping and risk to chronic or infectious disease conditions. An ecosocial approach to causality is explored. Students will demonstrate competence in use of data tools, databases, and interdisciplinary communication systems. The application of informatics technology to enhance outcomes on individual, group and population levels within an ethical framework is a major focus. Students will comprehend how knowledge is acquired, processed, generated, and disseminated.
NURS 515 The Healthcare Delivery System (3 SH)
This course provides a conceptual model of the American healthcare system and the governmental system of developing and implementing health policy. This includes a theoretical framework as well as a delineation of the functions and roles of the major sectors of the U.S. healthcare system.
NURS 516 Application of Legal & Ethical Principles to Healthcare (3 SH)
This course examines legal and ethical issues nursing and other healthcare managers negotiate as they manage the delivery of healthcare. Themes throughout the course include the manager as the steward of ethics and the importance of ethical awareness for all staff and staff inclusion in ethical decision making. The use of an organizational ethics committee will be practiced utilizing an ethical decision-making model which focuses on the importance of organizational values/mission, personal ethics, professional standards, and evidence-based decision-making. The influence of faith-based values on ethical decision-making will be outlined with students expected to identify and reflect how their own personal values shape their ethical positions. The context of the ethical response of management to medical errors and malpractice claims also will be examined. Multiple case studies that reflect these issues will be used to engage the students in decision-making regarding an appropriate managerial response.
NURS 620 Safety, Risk Reduction and Quality (4 SH)
This course examines issues of safety, risk reduction and quality of care at all levels of the healthcare system, and the role of nurse leaders in this area. The Institute for Medicine [IOM] states that healthcare should be safe, effective, equitable, patient-centered, efficient, and timely. This course is structured to cover each of these criteria and is broken into two sections. The first seven weeks examine the science and application of science for quality improvement as a preventive process. In the second section, the principles and methods for quality and safety as well as how organizations respond to safety issues will be reviewed. A variety of other issues related to quality and safety will be integrated throughout the course including the role of nursing and nurse leaders in the establishment of a quality and safety culture; the interchange between quality, cost, and value; as well as how quality is impacted by and impacts global and cultural aspects of healthcare.
Concurrent with this content, students will be creating and finalizing the methodology for their MSN capstone evidence-based quality improvement project with the end-result being the completion of an official proposal to a designated Capstone Project Faculty Advisor. Once approved, this project will be implemented in the subsequent NURS 630 course during the following summer. In essence, the spring semester is the Plan phase of your QI project. (NOTE: Prerequisite to this course is an undergraduate research course as well as problem-identification activities in collaboration with the MHM Program Director or Designee)
NURS 626 Managing in a Complex Healthcare Environment (3 SH)
This course examines the dynamics of leading the healthcare organization in times of rapid change during the 21st century. That change can be used to leverage effective organizational performance. The premise for leading healthcare organizations will be examined to include understanding the stakeholders, fulfilling the goals of the mission statement, utilization of evidence-based decision making to achieve goals, and sharing the rewards of improvement. The development of a culturally competent workforce that is focused on the delivery of care that exceeds expectations of a culturally diverse client base will be explored. The manager’s role in shaping the organization for effective leadership will be a major theme throughout the course. Theories of servant leadership and transformational leadership will be examined.
NURS 628 Systems Approach to Organizational Behavior (3 SH)
All organizations are organic, interconnected systems that take on a life of their own regardless of the individuals that occupy various roles in the system. Leaders need to understand their organizational systems and the behavior of those systems if they hope to effectively lead or change them. This course will explore organizational behavior and organizational development through metaphors and from a systems perspective, including concepts of change and conflict. It will rely heavily on student participation. Learning topics include motivation theory, group behavior, leadership, decision-making, organizational structure and culture, emotional intelligence and communication. This course affirms a systemic perspective and approach to organizational behavior and the content is applicable to students in for-profit, not-for profit, church, and educational organizations. During the course you will read, respond to forum questions, meet with the CEO or board chair, discuss content with classmates, analyze a meeting and write three papers in our quest to meet course objectives.
NURS 702 Health Information Technology (3 SH)
This course covers key topics in changes in technology, policies, and innovations that have occurred, historically and recently. Topics also include health informatics (HI) overview, electronic health records, healthcare data analytics, health information exchange, architecture of information systems, evidence based practice, consumer health informatics, HI ethics, and quality improvement strategies for HI.
OLS 515 Introduction to Leadership Studies (3 SH)
The course is an overview of various leadership theories, examining models of leadership, philosophies of leadership and different leadership styles. The advantages and disadvantages of various approaches will be studied.
OLS 530 Organizational Behavior (3 SH)
All organizations are organic, interconnected systems that take on a life of their own regardless of the individuals that occupy various roles in the system. Leaders need to understand their organizational systems and the behavior of those systems if they hope to effectively lead or change them. This course will explore organizational behavior and organizational development from a systems perspective, including concepts of change and conflict. It will rely heavily on case studies and student participation.
OLS 540 Managerial Finance and Accounting I (3 SH)
Managers, executives and boards carry fiduciary responsibility for their organizations. It is therefore imperative that they know how to read financial statements, analyze financial health, and communicate this knowledge effectively to others. This course teaches how financial data is generated and reported, as well as how it is used at the managerial level for decision-making, analysis and valuation. Topics include: understanding and reading financial statements, financial statement analysis, ratio analysis – what the numbers really mean, budgeting, and organizational governance.
OLS 610 Strategic Marketing Management (3 SH)
Provides an introduction to the principles and practices of marketing. Topics include marketing structure, channels of distribution, consumer behavior, pricing, advertising, industrial marketing, telemarketing and marketing research. Aspects of international marketing and service marketing are included. Consumer behavior topics include psychological, sociological and anthropological variables that influence consumer motivation and actions.