Healthcare Management with Industrial Placement - MSc

This module aims to provide an advanced understanding of the role of strategic management in organisations, relating to the strategic analysis, decision-making and processes within and between organisations in different business contexts. Through studying this module students develop critical awareness of current developments and new insights in strategic management and performance measurement.

Indicative topics may include:

Defining corporate strategy; the strategy context; strategy formulation; resource-based strategy; corporate and business strategy; performance measurement (tools and techniques).

The module aims to cover key accounting and financial management aspects of a business. The module begins by learning about the use of accounting principles in measuring and reporting financial position of a business for external stakeholders. It then moves on to analysing and interpreting financial reports for decision making. Under the financial management aspect, the module covers key capital investment decision making techniques such as NPV and IRR. Finally, the major aspects related to long term financing decisions such as sources of long term finance, capital structure, and costs of debt, equity and capital are covered.

This module will utilise domestic and international companies to shed light on change management issues, and models of change and therefore allows students to gain understanding of leadership and change in organisations and subjects covered will typically include:

• Understanding change management.
• The role of change agents including management consultants.
• Examine the core issues involved in leading change.
• Organisations and key stakeholders to deliver change and organisational success.
• Contemporary issues in change management.

This module examines recent developments in marketing thinking and market strategy development. Students will acquire a theoretical foundation through the lectures and discussions on marketing management and communications concepts and frameworks. The use of case studies will allow the student to explore the process of marketing decision-making and strategy development as well as enhancing the ability to apply marketing theory to a wide range of problems.

Indicative topics are

• Marketing planning
• The market: understanding and analysing the marketing environment
• Segmentation, targeting and positioning
• Marketing research
• Understanding customers and buyer behaviour
• The organisation: marketing strategy and ethics
• The marketing mix (goods and services)
• New product development
• Marketing communications
• Pricing
• Marketing channels
• Contemporary issues in marketing

Employers are in search for individuals who possess logical thinking, analytical capability, leadership, communication and the ability to work under pressure. This module develops the necessary research knowledge and skills for students to be able to successfully complete a piece of research in industry or consultancy contexts or academia.

The module will focus on exploring how health systems need to adapt to changing health needs and maintain financial sustainability. Students will be introduced to a range of concepts relevant to developing sustainable health systems. This will encompass the way health systems are funded, how care delivery is organised to meet the needs of patients and how managers will need to respond to changing systems and organisational demands.

The aim of this module is to explore system changes, integrated care models, and system architecture as they relate to health care. The focus will be primarily on health systems in high income countries. In many high income countries, including the UK and Canada, health systems are facing the challenge of adapting to new approaches to healthcare that focus on the organisation and management of health services in primary and community settings to meet changing health needs. These organisations tend to be smaller, often networked or federated groups, have flatter organisational structures and are developing new ways of working, coping with more complex delivery settings and the need to adopt more collaborative and integrated ways of working between organisations.

The module will commence by considering two questions 'How can patients be part of an interdisciplinary team?' and ‘How can an interdisciplinary team be managed?’ thereby enabling students to think in terms of inclusion of the patient and reflecting upon the possible advantages and disadvantages of this approach. Students will then be introduced to the main history, challenges, and factors influencing collaboration and partnership between patients and professionals, and various practices of interpersonal collaboration practices. Subsequent weeks will cover topics on role clarification, negotiation and conflict resolution.

The module content includes business consultancy skills that are transferable into the business consulting profession, internal consultancy positions within organisations, and senior management roles.

Indicative topics are:

• Approaches to management consulting.
• Negotiating a scope of work.
• Developing a client proposal.
• Data collection and analysis.
• Preparing and presenting a consulting report.
• Working as an effective team member in a consulting team.
• Managing client relationships and expectations.
• Consulting project management.

Managing uncertainty in the organisation of healthcare draws upon key managerial insights into the management of risk and uncertainty in contemporary systems of healthcare, with a specific emphasis on management of healthcare service delivery and organisation. The module begins with an introduction to general management principles of risk and uncertainty. Subsequently the module explores the nature of risk and uncertainty in the context of healthcare, in which notions of safety are paramount and the costs and visibility of organisational failures are high. The module further explores the impact upon decision making of increasingly complex systems of healthcare through different organisational forms (bureaucracy, market, network) and at different levels (policy, organisation, profession). The module considers values such as efficiency and effectiveness, and the role of knowledge and domain (e.g. health economics and implementation science in attempting to rationalise professional and managerial decision-making). The module concludes with an examination of new technologies and their impact upon risk, safety and uncertainty in healthcare.

This module will build on the module: Research Methods and Consultancy Skills and supervise health care students during their Management Report/ Dissertation Project.

Individual support will be provided regarding the following subjects:

• Formulating and clarifying the management consultancy/dissertation topic.

• Theoretical approaches and literature review.

• Philosophy of social science research.

• Research design.

• Research ethics.

• Secondary and primary research methods.

• Quantitative method and data analysis.

• Qualitative method and data analysis.

• Library resources: online sources and searching journal databases.

• Writing and presenting a research project/ management consultancy report/dissertation.

Find out more about BUSN9112

Students will spend a period of time working in an industrial or organisational setting, applying and enhancing the skills and techniques they have learned on the programme. Work will be carried out under the direction of a placement supervisor. This support will include ensuring that the work they are expected to do within the placement company/organisation meets the learning outcomes of the module.

Find out more about BUSN9176

Students will spend a period of time working in an industrial or organisational setting, applying and enhancing the skills and techniques they have learned on the MSc in Business Analytics programme. Work will be carried out under the direction of an industrial supervisor and supported by a dedicated Placement Support Officer within the School. This support will include ensuring that the work they are expected to do within the placement company/organisation meets the learning outcomes of the module.

Find out more about BUSN9168

Students will spend a period of time working in an industrial or organisational setting, applying and enhancing the skills and techniques they have learned on the MSc in Business Analytics programme. Work will be carried out under the direction of an industrial supervisor and supported by a dedicated Placement Support Officer within the School. This support will include ensuring that the work they are expected to do within the placement company/organisation meets the learning outcomes of the module.

Find out more about BUSN9169

Students will spend a period of time working in an industrial or organisational setting, applying and enhancing the skills and techniques they have learned on the MSc in Business Analytics programme. Work will be carried out under the direction of an industrial supervisor and supported by a dedicated Placement Support Officer within the School. This support will include ensuring that the work they are expected to do within the placement company/organisation meets the learning outcomes of the module.

Find out more about BUSN9171

Students will spend a period of time working in an industrial or organisational setting, applying and enhancing the skills and techniques they have learned on the MSc in Business Analytics programme. Work will be carried out under the direction of an industrial supervisor and supported by a dedicated Placement Support Officer within the School. This support will include ensuring that the work they are expected to do within the placement company/organisation meets the learning outcomes of the module.

Find out more about BUSN9172