About Us
Department of Health Management and Systems Sciences
Sidebar
The Department of Health Management and Systems Sciences was created to improve the health of the people of the commonwealth of Kentucky and beyond by developing innovative health care leaders. Our primary aims are to develop, disseminate and apply evidence-based knowledge about health policymaking, systems design and quality health care delivery. We emphasize systems, public policies and processes for understanding and managing health systems and networks.
The department's vision is to house academic programs that are nationally and internationally recognized as making an impact on health policy and population health. This is accomplished through research productivity, the quality of our education and professional development programs, the dissemination of evidence-based knowledge and community service. This requires innovative leaders, community and industry partners, a nurturing academic setting and embracing innovative ideas for advancing knowledge.
The department is home to faculty from diverse backgrounds including health economics, policy, health management, organizational research and pharmacy. Our faculty's diverse backgrounds and research interests prepare students to navigate the complexity of 21st century health administration and management and make a measurable contribution to improving population health.
Students learn cutting edge knowledge in subject areas including people and organizational issues, health services research, properties and behaviors, health law and ethics, health regulations and policies, health economics, organization management, health information and information technology management, health services management, community management and collaborative communities management.
Mission
To improve the health of the people of the commonwealth of Kentucky and beyond by developing innovative health care leaders and partnering with the community to develop, disseminate and apply evidence-based knowledge about health policy-making, systems design, and quality healthcare delivery.
Vision
We aspire to have academic programs that are nationally and internationally recognized as making an impact on health policy and population health. We will accomplish this through our research productivity, the quality of our education and professional development programs, the dissemination of evidence-based knowledge and community service.
Values
- We nurture an academic setting that fosters ethics, respect, diversity, cooperation, learning and fun.
- We strive to improve our approach and performance through a program of active feedback and deliberate change.
- We embrace innovative ideas for advancing knowledge.
- We investigate new techniques and technologies for doing research, teaching and service.
- We think globally and act locally.
- We collaborate with any who will join us in working for population health.
- We recognize that population health starts with the individual.
- We advocate for population health.
Goals
Whether at the masters or doctoral level, we want our graduates to be acknowledged as leading the transformation of our health care system. We will provide a curriculum that teaches our students leadership skills and we will track their performance post-graduation within their jobs. We will engage our alumni and use their feedback to improve the leadership skills within our programs.
The National Center for Healthcare Leadership, Health Policy and the AHRQ PhD competencies will be the driving forces behind the leadership development in HMSS. In addition, stakeholder advisory boards will assist with this process
Our faculty will be engaged at the local, state, national and international levels in developing innovative research projects that will impact health policy and health care delivery. We expect to publish in high-quality journals, present findings at the most impactful professional meetings and to have our research disseminated to the community to enable positive change in access, healthcare quality and costs.
We will use evidence-based pedagogical techniques to drive curriculum development. All of our programs will seek the appropriate accreditations for our field and will use this process as a continuous quality check of our processes. The programs will use input from current students, alumni, employers and stakeholders to improve the skill sets and competencies that our students are taught in the programs.
Our master of science in health administration, master of public health concentration in health policy, master of science in health data analytics and PhD in public health sciences specialization in health management and policy curriculum will be the primary areas where this area will be executed.
We will work with the community to determine where we can have the most impact, develop research projects that can solve real-time problems and disseminate these findings so that population health can be improved.