HEALTH SCIENCES (HSC)

How is healthcare delivered, funded, and legislated within the United States? What is working and what is not in our current system? This course will address the framework and structure of contemporary healthcare delivery systems in the United States and abroad. Key issues surrounding healthcare legislation, public vs. privatized insurance, and the differences with universal healthcare. Disparities in access and quality of care, health outcomes in the United States, and the role of technology in healthcare delivery will all be introduced. Students will gain an appreciation of the complexity of interacting systems that comprise health care delivery today with special attention toward the challenges and opportunities for patient-centered care.

This course provides an overview of the basic principles in Public Health, a field focused on health promotion and disease prevention. Students will learn the concepts and methods for measuring health in populations. Environmental, socio-economic, and behavioral determinants of health will be discussed, as will the role of health care systems, public policy, and government. Students will engage in the public health approach to issues by learning to define the problem, establish the cause, identify mitigating factors, develop evidence-based recommendations for interventions, and use appropriate methods to evaluate the impact of the intervention.

This course explores chronic illness and disability in light of its psychological and social impact. Historical and current perspectives on chronic illness and disability are studied. Disability models are presented. The major determinants associated with the psychological adaptation to chronic illness and disability are examined in this course. The impact that chronic illness and disability has on personality and development, sexual functioning, family functioning, social functioning, and other significant areas of function are covered. The role of gender on psychological adaptation to chronic illness and disability are covered. The role of gender on psychological adaptation to chronic illness and disability is addressed. The course will also study stigma and the attitudes of others toward people with disabilities and sever and chronic health conditions.

The Institute of Medicine frames healthcare quality as being patient-centered, timely, efficient, effective, safe, and equitable. Patient advocacy is a central organizing vehicle for negotiating patient navigation and systemic improvements in healthcare organizations and across health care systems. This course will advance the place and role of patient advocacy in the United States health care system with an emphasis on specific tasks, skills and actions. The advocacy focus for/with consumers will attend to protecting the ethical rights of patients, improving patient quality of life, developing cultural competence in health care, promotion of disease prevention and health literacy, assistance with financing health care, integrating behavioral health services with primary care, and improving access to community-based care. Policy advocacy in healthcare, community and government settings will also be introduced.

Evidence-based practice in health care is the synthesis of best available research evidence with current knowledge and clinical experience for health promotion and quality health care services. It is a predominant clinical and administrative consideration for improving health care delivery and practice. While unprecedented developments in the diagnosis, treatment, and long-term management of disease provide the opportunity for longer and healthier lives, access to health care that is most appropriate is too often impeded by ignorance, inequity, and economic constraints. The Institute of Medicine finds this gap, “due to our failure to apply the evidence gathered about the medical care that is most effective – a failure related to shortfalls in provider knowledge and accountability, inadequate care coordination and support, lack of insurance, poorly aligned payment incentives, and misplaced patient expectations.” For students who are participants of the U.S. health care system, as patients or prospective providers, understanding the research process and the critical appraisal of research to support the practice implications in health care is imperative.

This course will address relevant legal and ethical issues in current healthcare practice and systems. The course will provide an introduction to a broad scope of legal principles and obligations required by health care professionals and consider the professional ethics involved in modern health care delivery. Primarily, federal health care policies that will impact contemporary health providers in their everyday work will be reviewed. The rights and responsibilities of organizations, health care providers, and patients will be examined. Additionally, contemporary ethical dilemmas will be explored along with developing an understanding of how ethical issues are resolved using ethics committees in modern health systems.

This course provides a foundational understanding of the professional field of health education. The historical, philosophical, ethical, theoretical and practical issues of the field of community health education will be explored. The course covers health education principles and addresses the application of these principles to health challenges faced by individuals, groups and communities. The course provides a fundamental understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the health education specialist and the need for implementing a wide range of targeted health education activities in the community.