All Pods / Economics
Healthcare Economics: Explore the business of America's healthcare system and its pressing challenges
Healthcare Economics: Explore the business of America’s healthcare system and the most pressing challenges around it
Group size
1-6 students
Outcome
A published article in a pre-print research archive, respective contributions to the Healthcare in the United States Wikipedia page, and a final presentation.
Tuition
$495
Cohorts
Join the waitlist for our next cohort.
Sign up to be the first to know when we launch the next cohort.
Healthcare Economics: Explore the business of America's healthcare system and its pressing challenges
The world witnessed the efficiency and effectiveness of America’s healthcare system first hand during COVID; however, this same period unveiled significant shortcomings in the system—even though the US spends on average 2x per capita on healthcare compared with other developed countries, outcomes are considerably worse. Additionally, there seems to be a consensus that healthcare is too expensive in this country while no unified explanation exists for why this is the case. In this pod, you’ll dive into the business and management of healthcare and understand the end-to-end delivery of care while exploring opportunities to help fix a broken system. Through this pod you’ll learn about conducting research and the philosophical debates regarding healthcare.
Week by week curriculum
Week 1
Overview of the American healthcare system: Understand the fundamental health care delivery process and facts regarding spending and payment for healthcare. We will understand the goals of the American health system and compare how it performs to other developed countries and their models.
Week 2
Insurance and the insurance market: Cover the basic concepts of health insurance and the behavioral economic issues regarding insurance. We will discuss moral economic hazard and the implications of such in other industries beyond healthcare.
Week 3
Competition, pricing, and quality of care: Discover the ways hospital price their services and why pricing is so confusing. Learn tips and tricks about the healthcare industry that will save you a fortune later in life. We will also discuss why quality is difficult to measure in healthcare and how best to select a personal physician to address our health issues.
Week 4
Integration and solutions for better care: Learn about integrated health delivery networks and the important role they play on the US economy. Additionally, begin to recognize the scale and size of certain healthcare brands compared to more consumer facing companies.
Week 5
Innovation and measuring its improvement to life: Understand the role that innovation has within healthcare and how it can be measured to validate its usefulness. We will dive into drug development and debate the merits of drug pricing to spur innovation.
Week 6
Final presentations and showcasing Wikipedia edits: In teams, students will present their edits to Wikipedia as well as discuss progress on their research paper on a lever to improve the healthcare delivery system. We will also leave time to answer any remaining questions on the individual assignments so each student is well prepared to submit their paper.