Prof Andrew Street COW 1.02

This course is compulsory 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.

This course will be delivered as a combination of lectures and seminars. The course will be delivered over a minimum total of 25 hours. 

Formative assessment (up to 1000 words), is an outline of the summative assessment essay question. This will give students an opportunity to develop their thoughts ahead of the summative assessment, and will allow for feedback from course teachers that will guide students when they work on their longer summative essay

Bridgewater B, Hickey GL, Cooper G, Deanfield J, Roxburgh J. Publishing cardiac surgery mortality rates: lessons for other specialties BMJ 2013; 346 :f1139.

Smith, P.C. and Street, A.D. (2013), On the Uses of Routine Patient Reported Health Outcome Data. Health Econ., 22: 119-131.

Busse, R, et al (2013), Diagnosis Related Groups in Europe: Moving Towards Transparency, Efficiency, and Quality in Hospitals? British Medical Journal, vol 346, f3197, pp. f3197. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.f3197.

Gaughan, J., Kobel, C. Coronary artery bypass grafts and diagnosis related groups: patient classification and hospital reimbursement in 10 European countries. Health Econ Rev 4, 4 (2014).

Collins R, Bowman L, Landray M, Peto R. The magic of randomization versus the myth of real-world evidence. N Engl J Med 2020;382:674-678.

Califf RM, Hernandez AF, Landray M. Weighing the Benefits and Risks of Proliferating Observational Treatment Assessments: Observational Cacophony, Randomized Harmony. JAMA. 2020;324(7):625–626. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.13319

Essay (80%, 4500 words) and continuous assessment (20%) in the LT.

The course will be assessed on the basis of:

1. Four brief multiple choice assessments (5% each, total weight 20%).

2. A 4,500-word summative 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, seminars, group discussions and their own independent research and thinking.