Course Description

Innovations in health care have the potential to achieve efficiency, reduce health care costs, and ensure high-quality patient outcomes. But to achieve these goals, we must determine and adopt standards for health care quality and safety. Through lectures, case studies, and hands-on practice, this course introduces students to quality and measurement tools that make visible the most pressing areas of opportunity for health care innovation. Students will also learn how quality improvement initiatives can be leveraged to drive value for stakeholders across the health care system. 

Key Topics
  • Historical overview of quality and value
  • Quality measures, key players, and how quality translates into value
  • Current focus of health care quality including
    • health care equity,
    • social determinants,
    • worker turnover and burnout
  • Regulatory and legal considerations in health care quality
  • Principles and tools of quality improvement

A segment on understanding quality, from Value and Quality in Health Care.

Learning Objectives

After completing this course, you will be able to:

  • Recognize the historical perspective of health care quality and safety and how it has shaped the current US health care quality and safety focus.
  • Explain the categories of measures that are used to assess and compare the quality of care provided by health care organizations.
  • Outline the federal government's quality strategy and policy levers available to improve quality of care.
  • Evaluate the potential of quality initiatives and start-ups to provide value within the health care ecosystem. 
  • Apply quality improvement tools to understand and present a solution to real-world heath care problem.