Andrew Street

This course is available on the Executive MSc in Health Economics, Outcomes and Management in Cardiovascular Sciences. This course is not available as an outside option.

The health care sector is extremely complex, and this gives rise to concerns about how the health system should be organised, how incentives should be designed, and how performance should be evaluated. The objective of the course is to give students an introduction to how health systems are constructed, and how the various parts of the system interact; the role of regulation, resource allocation, payment arrangements, and performance measurement; the complexities of evaluating policy and performance; and the contribution that health economics can make to the evaluation and development of health policy. Participants are introduced to variety of econometric methods as the course progresses.

Lecture 1: A bottomless pit? How much should we spend on health care?

Lecture 2: Getting more for our money? Health system productivity

Lecture 3: Evaluating outcomes: are some doctors better than others?

Lecture 4: Paying for complex care

Lecture 5: Costs and quality: is there a trade-off?

Lecture 6: Is it worth paying for performance?

Lecture 7: Public provision in public health systems

Lecture 8: Should doctors hold budgets?

Lecture 9: The economics of integrated care

Lecture 10: WHO has the best health system?

15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of seminars in the MT.

Students will be expected to produce 1 essay in the MT.

The formative assessment is a 500 word outline of the summative assessment essay question.

• Deb P and Trivedi PK. Empirical Models of Health Care Use. Chapter 14 Jones A (ed) Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham 2006.
• Cookson R, Dawson D. Hospital Competition and Patient Choice in Publicly Funded Health Care. Chapter 20 Jones A (ed) Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham 2006.
• Chalkley M. Contracts, Information and Incentives in Health Care Chapter 22 Jones A (ed) Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham 2006.
• Rice T. The Physician as the Patient’s Agent. Chapter 24 Jones A (ed) Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham 2006.
• Iversen T, Lurås H. Capitation and Incentives in Primary Care Chapter 25 Jones A (ed) Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham 2006.
• Glazer J and McGuire TG. Optimal Risk Adjustment. Chapter 26 Jones A (ed) Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham 2006.
• Propper C, Wilson D. The Use of Performance Measures in Health Care Systems Chapter 31 Jones A (ed) Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham 2006.
• Smith PC, Street A. Concepts and Challenges in Measuring the Performance of Health Care Organizations Chapter 30 Jones A (ed) Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham 2006.
• S Folland, A C Goodman & M Stano, The Economics of Health and Health Care(7th edn), Prentice Hall, 2012.
• J Bhattacharya, T Hyde & P Tu, Health Economics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
• J Gruber, Public Finance and Public Policy (5th edn), Macmillan, 2016.

Essay (100%, 3500 words) in the MT.

The course will be assessed on the basis of a 3500 word essay on a specific topic. In writing this essay, students will be able to demonstrate and synthesise what they have learned from the lectures, reading material, group discussions and their own independent research and thinking. The content of the assessments will lead on from the illustrative case studies that have been used in the seminars.

Formative assessment will be based on a 500 word outline of the essay. This will give students an opportunity to develop their thoughts ahead of the summative assessment and will allow feedback from course teachers that will guide students when they work on their longer answers.

Due to the executive nature of the course and the 1 week nature of the module, this method of assessment will allow students to work away from campus alongside their professional roles.