PHSC 550 Approaches to Population Health Innovations

This course will introduce the student to the package of innovation perspectives and research methods employed within both design thinking and systems thinking approaches to population health innovation. The course will focus on the individual and collective experience of human health, via individual choice models and systems level structures and policies. Design thinking provides a flexible and disciplined innovation model that prioritizes public health needs at the patient level of engagement within health service offerings. Systems thinking in healthcare considers the ways large communities organize themselves to achieve collective health goals. When integrated together, both approaches to population health improvements leads the student to visualize population health as one holistic issue with multiple levels of focus and impact. The student will be able to fully synthesize population health issues at the micro and macro levels, to recommend a framework or model for improvements that can inform research and policy-related decision making and service innovations.