Health policy and management graduates work in the following areas and sectors:
- Hospital management
- Insurance and managed care management
- Health care system management
- Medical group practice management
- Access to health care for underserved populations
- Global health
- Policy at the state, local, and federal levels that impacts access to cost and quality of health care services
- Patient safety and quality assurance
- Long-term care services
- Research and policy analysis
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, medical and health services managers are...
- Projected to experience faster than average employment growth (20–28%) over the period 2010–20
- Projected to see 141,900 job openings over the period 2010–20
Those who work in health policy and management positions engage in some of the following activities:
- Head organizations and exercise effective management and leadership practices
- Make decisions about the provision and delivery of health care services and work to improve efficiency and quality
- Develop and implement regulations and policies that impact the lives of populations, communities, and individuals, including addressing social and class disparities in health care
- Stay up to date on new laws and regulations and ensure organizations are in compliance
- Communicate with members of the medical staff and department heads
- Provide marketing and consulting services
Everyone benefits from research and interventions such as the following, in which the Department of Health Policy and Management is involved:
- Providing free, high quality programs to inform public policy makers, health care executives, and board members through the Health Policy Institute
- Discovering that seniors who previously had limited or no drug coverage spent more on prescriptions and less on other medical care services, such as hospitalizations and visits to the doctor’s office, after enrolling in Medicare Part D
- Finding that Part D enrollees with relatively good prior prescription coverage spent more on prescriptions and other medical services and concluding that if all eligible patients filled their prescriptions through a $4 generic drug program, the savings to society could amount to nearly $6 billion
- Investigating women, Blacks, and Medicare patients with end-stage liver disease and finding that they are less likely to be referred and evaluated for liver transplantation
Graduates of the Department of Health Policy and Management develop the following competencies:
Cross cutting
- Analytical thinking
- Communication
- Systems thinking
Self-actualization
- Accountability
- Professionalism
- Self-development
Management
- Financial skills
- Human resources management
- Information technology management
- Leadership
- Performance measurement and process management
Contextual/Environmental understanding
- Community orientation
- Organizational awareness
- Strategic orientation