ISP Course 3

Social Policy

Decisions regarding the nature of the healthcare delivery system are made within the context of a social policy framework. These decisions must take into account the nature, history, and traditions of a society, the changing climate of opinion, as well as the underlying goals and values of a society and its members. As a provider of health care services, the student is affected by a myriad of social policies. The scope of these policies is far reaching and includes the collection of public laws adopted at the federal, state and local level, and rules and regulations promulgated by agency bureaucrats. It is essential that the health care administrator understands health care policy within the broader context of social policy, but more specifically learns how to influence it as well as understand how policy decisions are made, changed, and put into action.

How money resources are generated to provide for health services in any society is the underlying theme of this unit. It is not financial management. It uses basic economic and insurance principles as well as financing policy to look at the relationship between source of resources and delivery. It includes the movement of funds from consumers or third party payers to providers, the resulting incentives for both consumers and providers and the consequences for individuals and society as a whole.

"Organizing" is the synthesis of organization theory, strategic thinking, change theory, and marketing. Because organizing is presented here as a "verb" and as an external force affecting healthcare delivery, the emphasis is on the external environment of the healthcare organization. More specifically, how the manager can use organization theory, change theory, strategic theory and marketing theory, to structure the organization, department, or committee, so as to be prepared strategically for change propelled by external events ...or to initiate change itself.

A far greater degree of self-managed, independent learning is required in Course III. Course III encourages students to move toward a highly individualized mode of study and intellectual growth. The ten day on-campus session prepares the student for the academic year by introducing the four forces and preparation for the Course III project (thesis). Quantitative methods are emphasized and students participate in a project exercise. Each student is assigned to a faculty advisor group for the year.

From September through December students complete readings and assignments related to the four forces described below. In December, students participate in a five-day seminar in which lectures, small group discussions and critiques focus on each external force but primarily on each student's project proposal including problem definition and scope, state of current knowledge, hypotheses or formal propositions, design, methodology and analytic procedures. The student follows the December Seminar by submitting a project proposal.

Students work on their projects from January through May, with formal presentations being made in June. This verbal summary of each project is presented before faculty and peers and supported by a written document in the form of a scholarly paper.

Course III focuses on four interrelated forces which shape the health service delivery system. Using models, each unit characterizes the active processes by which the particular force influences the system.

Although the first two years of ISP are targeted to produce a competent manager from the inside of the organization as well as governance, the successful executive must deal with the external forces impacting the organization. Course III fulfills that proactive external role.