Professor Anthony LoSasso
The health care industry makes up nearly 20% of the economy and is still a growing industry. The current coronavirus pandemic illustrates both the importance of the health care sector and how it impacts all of our lives.
The Department of Economics plans to launch a new MBA concentration in Healthcare Analytics in the winter quarter of 2021, pending faculty approval. Our resident health economist,
Professor Anthony LoSasso, discusses the proposed new concentration and answers a few questions about it.
What is Healthcare Analytics?
Our vision for the MBA in Healthcare Analytics is for a program of specialized training focused on a variety of valuable skills in the health care sector. The program will demonstrate to students how the health care sector is at the same time similar and different from the rest of the economy. It will also focus on how the behavior of the health care sector adheres to and deviates from economic principles. Finally, it will highlight the ever-increasing role of data in guiding the decision-making of both the health care industry and policy makers. The SARS-Cov-2 pandemic has provided a window into the critical importance of health care institutions and how they fit together to improve population health.
Tell us about the proposed MBA in Healthcare Analytics concentration.
It’s a four-course concentration in the MBA program. In fall 2020, students can prepare for its offering by taking ECO 798: Managerial Health Economics and MGT 559: Health Sector Management. Additionally, we plan to offer ECO 540: The Business of Health and ECO 541: Healthcare Data Analytics in winter 2021 and spring 2021, respectively.
Why should MBA students take this concentration?
The health care sector in the United States represents nearly one-fifth of the economy. It is very likely that DePaul students will be either employed in or closely interacting with the health care sector in their careers. This program will provide a launching platform to learn how the health care sector works, which is the first step toward becoming a part of it.
What sort of jobs can students get with this concentration?
Graduates with this concentration will be very well suited for jobs in the health care industry itself: large integrated health care providers are generating terabytes of data and need to make decisions on how to organize care and comply with complex government regulations. Additionally, graduates will find opportunities in the health insurance industry, the consulting sector and the government. Our program will provide a balance of hands-on technical knowledge of health care data, organizational details on the major components of the health care sector, and detailed knowledge of how incentives determine the behavior of the major players in the health care arena —patients, physicians, hospitals, long-term care institutions, pharmaceutical companies, and local, state and federal government agencies.
Will students learn any specific software in this program?
Students with get hands-on experience with using health care data in Stata. This will be supplemented by SQL and other common tools. The goal is to provide students with the knowledge they will need to “hit the ground running” in their organization.