This module was designed to give you a foundational knowledge of health care operations and methods of optimization. You’ll examine the provider-patient relationship and learn how a provider can improve performance measures for the patient by analyzing the different types of performance metrics such as patient-centric, operations, and financial measures. Through discussing the different types of inefficiencies such as waste, variability, and inflexibility, you’ll be able to optimize performance and service. You’ll also learn how to gauge patient flow by flow rate, flow time, and inventory, and be able to map processes using a flow diagram and a Gantt chart. By the end of this module, you’ll be better able to calculate the financial viability of a health care provider using Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and create a framework to assess and optimize performance.

In this module, you’ll see how techniques in innovation that originally developed outside of health care can be deployed successfully in health care systems and organizations. Using your understanding of optimizing health care operations, you’ll be able to apply innovative techniques to a more traditional ecosystem of health care. You’ll learn how innovative researchers and clinicians changed some of the more grounded approaches to health care. Through analyzing the scientific method, you’ll be able to craft a hypothesis statement of your innovative idea and identify key assumptions in your statement to test first. By the end of this module, you’ll be able to successfully assess the value and plausibility of the hypothesis of your innovation, and effectively utilize successful instances of innovation to your health care practice.

In this module, you’ll examine the practice of evaluation and how it is applied to health policy and programs. You’ll gain a better understanding of the need for evaluations in an ever-changing health care environment, and the importance of control groups to combat selection bias that may skew the findings of an evaluation. You’ll explore different methods to conducting an evaluation, the types of questions an evaluation aims to answer, and the difference between effectiveness and efficacy. By the end of this module, you’ll understand the theoretical framework behind an evaluation and be able to employ an evaluation to better analyze the effectiveness of your health care organization.