Core Courses

This course examines the definition of population health and how it is measured. Students will explore the biological, psychological, and social drivers of health; the causes and consequences of unwarranted variation and its impact on health disparities; and how addressing organizational and system performance can improve both individual lives and overall population health status.

This course equips students with the fundamentals of financial and managerial accounting. In part 1 of the course, students will learn how to interpret and analyze the financial statements (income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows) of health care organizations, as well as how to forecast future value using pro forma financial statements. Part 2 of the course focuses on analyses and procedures for planning, directing, and controlling decision-making activities.

In this course, students will learn the financial skills necessary to make effective budgeting and capital investment decisions for health care organizations. Concepts include the cost of capital, reimbursement methodologies, interpretation of financial reports, valuation, and methods for financing investments.

Successfully managing people and teams requires competence with a variety of concepts and skills, including motivation, diversity, conformity, conflict, performance feedback, decision-making, negotiations, and fairness. This course links organizational design with team and individual performance, and with the management of change.

This course teaches the measurement of health care quality with the goal to improve patient safety, health outcomes, equity, and the patient experience. Students will learn evidence-based methods for continuous quality improvement and practical approaches for implementing these methods.

This course introduces economic concepts as applied to the current health care landscape and future policy changes. Students will establish an economic basis for sound managerial decision-making.

This course provides an opportunity for students to synthesize their learning from throughout the program. Working individually and in groups, students will complete project work that draws on all aspects of the curriculum. The final deliverable for the course will be a presentation delivered to a panel of MHA faculty and health care executives.

Through this course, students will build an understanding of their strengths and opportunities for improvement as leaders. Students will identify actions that advance their leadership potential, including the application of principles of power and influence.

This practically oriented course teaches concepts and techniques for improving organizational performance; process flow, capacity analysis, queuing, inventory management, and service design.

This applied strategy course teaches a process toolkit: key ideas, concepts, and tools for identifying strategic goals, ensuring buy-in from key constituents, and laying the groundwork for successful implementation.

This course teaches students to align organizational mission and front-line actions by examining the principles and application of clinical, research, public health, and organizational ethics frameworks.

In this course, students will learn applied skills for professional communication, including writing and presentation skills, persuasion, and team communication.

Data analytics can improve decision-making in health care. This course will teach students topics including: types of health care data, data collection and storage, health care data privacy, key metrics in different health care domains, data visualization and communication of results, predictive analytics and emerging technologies in the data analytics space.

This course orients students to the organization of the U.S. health system and comparative health systems, including financing, organization, delivery, and oversight, all with an emphasis on systems thinking and payment systems.

In this applied course, students will learn concepts and practical techniques for securing an agreement between two or more interdependent parties, including technical and analytical as well as interpersonal and communications skills.

This course teaches an analytical approach to solving managerial problems and making decisions. It includes hands-on experience using Excel and Excel plug-ins to create models for health care decision-making.

In this design thinking experience, students will gather and interpret information from patients and other stakeholders to understand their needs; they will then apply these insights to design successful innovations in health care.

This course aims to equip students with the expertise to critically evaluate and synthesize research findings, enabling them to make informed decisions, contribute to the advancement of knowledge in their field, and prepare for further research or professional pursuits.

This course prepares students for leadership roles in project-driven organizations, equipping them with the necessary skills to deliver projects successfully while meeting objectives, constraints, and stakeholder expectations. 

Through applied learning experiences, students will discover and practice teamwork concepts and build community with their cohort of classmates.

John Wennberg's pioneering work in the 1970s that revealed unexplained differences in how medicine was practiced in different geographies put Dartmouth in the center of the debate of what a health care system should do and how it can be designed to deliver that outcome. This course will teach students about the causes of variation in health care delivery as well as some tools to help move investments in care towards more productive measures and outcomes.