English   Danish

2021/2022  KAN-CIHCO1005U  Health Care Innovation and Management

English Title
Health Care Innovation and Management

Course information

Language English
Course ECTS 7.5 ECTS
Type Mandatory (also offered as elective)
Level Full Degree Master
Duration One Quarter
Start time of the course First Quarter
Timetable Course schedule will be posted at calendar.cbs.dk
Max. participants 60
Study board
Study Board for MSc in Business Administration and Innovation in Health Care
Course coordinator
  • Pedro Oliveira - Department of Strategy and Innovation (SI)
Main academic disciplines
  • Innovation
  • Statistics and quantitative methods
  • Economics
Teaching methods
  • Blended learning
Last updated on 09-02-2021

Relevant links

Learning objectives
  • Understand the fundamental principles and main concepts of managing in the healthcare context, as well as the different ways of developing and managing innovation and fostering an innovative culture in a healthcare context;
  • Understand the different contexts and sources of innovation in healthcare, e.g. by firms as an instrument of competition, by non-profits organizations for improvement of their services or for reducing their costs, by medical professionals for improved care and even by patients and their informal caregivers.
  • Understand the intrapreneurial process and apply intrapreneurial best practices to innovation projects or ventures inside existing organizations
  • Recognize how the economics and governance of different organizational types (firms, public health care organizations) affect their behavior in innovation.
  • Develop the competences to integrate a number of factors, internal and external to the organization, in decision-related analysis
  • Upon successful completion of the course each student should have demonstrated their ability to articulate innovation management issues and to apply the knowledge acquired in a healthcare context.
Course prerequisites
This is a mandatory course for the MSc in Business Administration and Innovation in Health Care.

To sign up send a 1-page motivational letter and a grade transcript to ily.stu@cbs.dk before the registration deadline for elective courses. You may find the registration deadlines on my.cbs.dk ( https:/​/​studentcbs.sharepoint.com/​graduate/​pages/​registration-for-electives.aspx )

Please also remember to sign up through the online registration.
Prerequisites for registering for the exam (activities during the teaching period)
Number of compulsory activities which must be approved (see section 13 of the Programme Regulations): 1
Compulsory home assignments
During the course students are expected to perform case analysis in groups of 4 or 5 students and upload their case solutions in Digital Exam. There will typically be 3 - 4 questions to be addressed in relation to each case (max 3 pages), and the students need to prepare a brief response. For preparing the response, students need to read the case and eventually discuss it with fellow students before answering the questions. To be admitted to the exam, 1 case analysis (done in groups) out of 2 has to be approved.
Examination
Health Care Innovation and Management:
Exam ECTS 7,5
Examination form Written sit-in exam on CBS' computers
Individual or group exam Individual exam
Assignment type Written assignment
Duration 4 hours
Grading scale 7-point grading scale
Examiner(s) One internal examiner
Exam period Winter
Aids Limited aids, see the list below:
The student is allowed to bring
  • Non-programmable, financial calculators: HP10bll+ or Texas BA II Plus
  • Language dictionaries in paper format
The student will have access to
  • Advanced IT application package
Make-up exam/re-exam
Same examination form as the ordinary exam
If the number of registered candidates for the make-up examination/re-take examination warrants that it may most appropriately be held as an oral examination, the programme office will inform the students that the make-up examination/re-take examination will be held as an oral examination instead.
Description of the exam procedure

Individual 4 hour written closed-books exam, including some questions about the case studies.

Course content, structure and pedagogical approach

Innovations in health care are made in different context, e.g. by firms as an instrument of competition, by non-profits organizations as instrument for improvement of their services or for reducing their costs, by medical professionals for improved care of their patients and even by patients and their informal caregivers who often innovate as a way to cope with their health condition.

At the same time, the speed in which technology is advancing increases day by day. Artificial intelligence, robotics and big data have made an impact across all industries, but perhaps their greatest impact is in healthcare. As technology evolves in the healthcare field, hospitals and startups have found new ways to improve their offerings and revolutionize the industry.

In all these different contexts innovations are shaped by economic factors affecting the way they are conceived, developed, implemented or accepted by their markets and its users.

This course enables students to understand the fundamental principles and main concepts of managing innovation, including some fundamental management frameworks, as well as the different ways of developing and managing an innovative culture, with a focus in the healthcare context. It will also provide students with a set of tools that will allow them to analyze innovations and to contribute to their managerial decision processes from this economic perspective.

 

  1. The course starts out with an introduction on innovation and management, main concepts and principles.
  2. Innovations grow out of opportunities and their combinations. Theories on innovation and innovation modes explain their building blocks and the cognitive and economic factors shaping the transformation of opportunities into inventions and innovations.
  3. Innovations in health care come from different sources and are developed in different context, e.g. by firms as an instrument of competition, by non-profits organizations as instrument for improvement of their services or for reducing their costs, by medical professionals for improved care of their patients and by patients and their informal caregivers to help them cope with the limitations imposed by their condition. 
  4. Innovations are associated with risks, costs and efforts and will be undertaken only if the innovating agent is adequatel incentivized. For firms this involves the challenge of appropriating the returns on their innovation costs through patenting or other efforts aimed at appropriation. For public institutions, such as hospitals, the innovations are linked to incentives in more complicated ways affecting the way they are conceived, carried out, prioritized and implemented.  
  5. Technologies evolve in cyclical patterns, affecting the undertraining and adoption of specific innovations Understanding technology cycles is required for a broad range of decisions in the undertaking and adoption of specific innovations.
  6. Companies and other organizations are guided by strategies, and innovations ideally should be strategically consistent in the way they are pursued or adopted. In reality for companies this questions of strategic consistency is less straightforward. In addition, the question presents further complications for a public health care system guided by multiple strategic goals some of which represent ongoing compromises. The assessment and prioritization of innovation from a strategic perspective gives rise to a number of challenges for innovation management.
  7. Health care to large extent consists of services. Innovation in services represents a number of challenges different from those found in manufactured products. The strong “people component” of services make them difficult to standardize, scale and apply into effective diffusion, and innovative service organizations have been required to manage their innovations in new ways. Students must understand these service characteristics, and the way they are addressed in innovation strategies.
  8. In innovation-intensive sectors, collaboration has become a crucial part of firms’ strategy. Students will need to understand the similarities and differences between collaboration with suppliers, collaboration with competitors, and collaboration between firms in different stages of the value chain. Focus will be put on analyzing how collaboration can promote/hinder innovation.

 

Description of the teaching methods
Teaching includes lecture-style classes, case discussion, in-class workshops with students presenting and actively participating in discussions around pre-assigned cases and/or exercises, and guest presentations by practitioners. Preparation before class is of crucial importance.
Feedback during the teaching period
Feedback will be given in connection with mandatory activities.
Student workload
lectures 32 hours
preparation for sessions 60 hours
Preparation of case analysis and written solutions 72 hours
Exam preparation and 4 hrs sit-in exam 44 hours
Last updated on 09-02-2021