Offered jointly by the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering and Pitt Public Health, this program provides specific competencies and analytical tools required for effective problem solving relevant to quality improvement and process engineering in the health care industry. It is designed for master’s students in the Department of Health Policy and Management and the Department of Industrial Engineering. As a student in this certificate program, you will:
- Demonstrate knowledge of the structures, performance, quality, policy and environmental context of health and health care to formulated solutions for health policy problems.
- Design and implement projects, including collecting, analyzing, interpreting data and offering sound evidence-based recommendations.
- Summarize and present health care engineering-related research orally and in writing.
Academic Requirements
As a student from either affiliated department, you must fulfill a series of prerequisites that provide a foundation in health care financing, organization, and reimbursement, as well as basic engineering principles. You will then take a series of core methods and projects courses, coupled with practical, hands-on project experiences in health care organizations.
Required pre/co-requisite courses
- IE 2001 Operations Research*
- IE 2023 Work Design
- BIOST 2041 Introduction to Statistical Methods 1 or BIOST 2011 Principles of Statistical Reasoning
- HPM 2105 Introduction to the U.S. Health Care Delivery System 1
Core courses
- HPM 2207 Quality Assessment
- HPM 2017 Quantitative Methods in Health Care
- HPM 2220 Cost Effectiveness Analysis
- HPM 2050 HSE Seminar
- IE 2108 Health Systems Engineering**
- IE 2102 Lean/Six Sigma or BQOM 2139***
- IE 2998 Graduate Projects/Practicum
*HPM 2051 Healthcare Applications of Operations Research may be substituted for IE 2001
**IE 2122 Fundamentals of System Engineering may be substituted for IE 2108
***BQOM 2139 Six Sigma Theory and Practice may be substituted for IE 2102
Other requirements
- One elective in HPM or IE
- Seminar
- Capstone project
Admissions
Requirements for admission are identical those for the MS in industrial engineering or the MHA. MHA applicants and current MHA students already enrolled at Pitt Public Health may apply by contacting the Office of Student Affairs at PHadmissions@pitt.edu. Students already enrolled in the Department of Industrial Engineering should contact the graduate program administrator at gradie@pitt.edu.
Certificate admission may be initiated at any time after the applicant has been admitted to either the MHA or the MS program.
Admissions decisions are made by the program directors in both the Department of Health Policy & Management and the Department of Industrial Engineering.
