Curriculum: Pharmacy Leadership Graduate Certificate

Next Term Application Deadline

12.15.2024

Total Credits

Next Term Starts

01.13.2025

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Listen in while program director Dr. Jenelle Sobotka discusses the program, curriculum, work-life balance, and online school.

Curriculum at a Glance

Leadership and management principles, as well as skill development exercises, are woven into the active learning content of all courses. To maximize the learning experience, professional growth is fostered through the application of leadership principles with case studies and activities included in every course. Students benefit from gaining insights into healthcare issues from various perspectives and stakeholders in healthcare.

The curriculum is asynchronous; students can access course information 24/7.
Lectures are video-recorded, and activities are posted for your review on your schedule.
Coursework can be completed at times that best fit your work and personal schedules.
Opportunities are provided for engaging in online discussions with professors and classmates.

Course Requirments

Each course in the program is worth three semester credit hours and completed in a compressed schedule of 7.5 weeks. Students typically take one 7.5 week course at a time, completing two courses each semester as they proceed through the program for 5 Courses and 15 Credit Hours.

One Required Course

Principles of Leadership (HCA 7002) (MHA Program)

Select Three of the Following College of Pharmacy Electives

Leading Quality Management in Pharmacy Practice (PHLD 8010)
Human Resource Management in Pharmacy (PHLD 8020)
Communication for Pharmacy Leaders (PHLD 8030)
Management of Medication Use Systems (PHLD 8040)
Health Care Marketplace – Pharmacy Economics (PHLD 8050)
Accounting for Pharmacy Leaders (PHLD 8070)

Choose One Approved Elective the College of Business or College of Allied Health

To learn more about our course offerings, review a sample of our curriculum.

CURRICULUM AT A GLANCE

Required Course Elective Courses - College of Pharmacy Elective Courses - College of Business & College of Allied Health

Course	Title / Description	Credit
HCA7002	Health Systems Management 2: Principles of Leadership Course: HCA7002 Credit: 3 This course provides an introduction and overview to leadership, management and organizational concepts and principles reflecting the uniqueness and the particular requirements of effective and successful health care leadership. The course integrates theory with practice through readings, lectures, written assignments and discussion board postings describing different organizational perspectives and experiences. Personal and professional assessment skills as well as practice skills and the development of leadership, managerial, and organizational skills will be accomplished through an integration of course materials with application to the students' own professional settings. The review, analysis and reflection of students' own experiences, strengths, challenges and outcomes will be required during this learning process. This course aims to provide a relevant understanding of organizational dynamics, professional development,team development, team cohesiveness, strategic formulation, implementation, decision-making and negotiation as well as a focus on excellent written, verbal and interpersonal communications and their positive impact on effective leadership.	3

Choose three (3) courses from the following list (College of Pharmacy classes)

Course	Title / Description	Credit
PHLD8010	Leading Quality Management in Pharmacy Course: PHLD8010 Credit: 3 This course present students with a comprehensive overview of quality management principles, concepts and tools used in healthcare with a special emphasis in pharmacy practice. Through an analysis of pharmacy -related cases, students will have the opportunity to evaluate the relationship between leadership principles and quality improvement. Topics include quality performance measurement, culture of quality, techniques for quality leadership, patient engagement in quality and the use of technology in quality improvement.	3
PHLD8020	Human Resources Management in Pharamacy Course: PHLD8020 Credit: 3 Course will provide an understanding of Human Resources as it pertains to management in Pharmacy. It will include presentations and discussion on employment laws, discipline, the selection and the placement process as well as, developing and recognizing your employees.	3
PHLD8030	Communication for Pharmacy Leaders Course: PHLD8030 Credit: 3 This course presents students with techniques , methods and concepts to develop effective communication skills as a pharmacy leader. Through the utilization of scenario exercises, online discussion boards, video technology and respective field work, students will develop a comprehensive set of communication skills. Topics include analysis of multiple communication techniques, recognition of cultural differences with respect to communication expectations, developing and spreading a vision, applying the art of both persuasion and feedback, and identifying and framing audiences. Skills learned through this coursework will prepare students to communication their viewpoints, expectations and vision as a leader in the profession of pharmacy.	3
PHLD8040	Medication Use System Management Course: PHLD8040 Credit: 3 This course covers the elements of the medication use system and will assist students in developing skills to assume a leadership role in devising and implementing process improvements of use of health care technologies (electronic health record, bar codes, robotics, smart devices) in the medication system along with HIT standards for interface and integration, and mobile health technologies. Students will gain an understanding of personal health records and models of community and regional information networks. Course content will include activities in workflow process mapping and workflow redesign, project management, and processes for documentation and coding.	3
PHLD8050	The Healthcare MarketPlace- Pharmacy Economics Course: PHLD8050 Credit: 3 This course provides an overview of economics and marketplace topics related to pharmacy, with particular emphasis on topics relevant to the pharmaceutical industry and health benefit payment models. This course will provide an introduction to the fundamentals of Pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research. Pharmacy business aspects of pharmaceutical regulation and pricing, contracts and purchasing models, group purchasing organizations, MTM reimbursement, specialty pharmacy, and value based clinical and financial models for future health care delivery will all be addressed in the course content. Innovation and marketing will also be included with cases and application activities.	3
PHLD8070	Accounting and Financial Decision- Making for Pharmacy Leaders Course: PHLD8070 Credit: 3 This course covers selected financial and managerial aspects of healthcare financial management, specifically designed for Pharmacists. It provides a broad introduction to key concepts, issues, tools, and vocabulary useful for managers, department heads, and owners. There are three main topic areas covered in the course: financial accounting; finance; and managerial accounting. The focus is on the understanding and application of the accounting information in healthcare with emphasis on addressing use within the pharmacy.	3

Choose one (1) course from the following list (College of Business & College of Allied Health classes)

Course	Title / Description	Credit
HCA7001	Health Systems Management 1: Organization & Delivery Course: HCA7001 Credit: 3 The course is intended to provide the Master of Health Administration (MHA) student and future manager with a systems perspective of US health and health care structure and function. As the introductory course in the MHA program, it is to provide the fundamentals for all courses that follow, including finance and economics, strategy, quality improvement, policy and law, and others. Topics include an overview of the history, organization, and effectiveness of United States health care and public health systems, health system governance structures, roles, responsibilities as well as determinants of health, need, access and utilization.	3
HCA7031	Health Policy 1: Health Policy & Regulation Course: HCA7031 Credit: 3 This course is designed to provide students with an overview of the structure, systems and policies of health care delivery in the United States. The major structural/system issues include the "big three" or "universal issues" i.e., access quality and costs, which includes Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance. Other system topics include the uninsured, health care professions, hospitals, long-term care, mental health, integrated health care systems, the Veterans Administration Health Systems, pharmaceuticals and technology. The course prepares learners to confront the underlying values and ethics that drive the politics of the health care system and to understand and apply basic concepts in policy analysis and advocacy in practice settings. Discussions and assignments will focus on the development of public policy concerning medical care and public health and the relationship between public decisions and the marketplace. Topics include health policy formulation, implementation and evaluation.	3
HCA7032	Health Policy 2: Legal & Ethical Issues Course: HCA7032 Credit: 3 This course presents an introduction to the legal and ethical issues that arise in management of health services organizations. Topics include: ethics in business and clinical decision making, tools for understanding ethics and ethical analysis, professional and organizational guidelines in making ethical decisions, including codes of ethics and mission statements, organizational responses to ethical issues, including ethics processes, such as institutional ethics committees and institutional review boards,conflicts of commitment and conflicts of interest,patient and community concerns and end of life decisions. Additionally, the course will review legal principles development, application and assessment, and, resource allocation and social responsibility. Other topics covered include: liability, health care institutions as corporations, the nature and scope of public health authority, antitrust, fraud and abuse, privacy and confidentiality, tax implications, regulatory oversight, legal requirements for access to health care, nondiscrimination, conflicts of interest and constitutional constraints on public health initiatives.	3
HCA7033	Global Health Systems Course: HCA7033 Credit: 3 This course will provide an overview of global health problems and national health systems to provide the student with a perspective on how societies approach health and health care including cultural, economic and political factors. National systems from the developed and under-developed world will be examined and contrasted, including those of England, Canada, and Cuba. In addition to national systems, the roles played by certain global/international systems such as the World Health Organization, certain UN agencies and NGOs will be explored.	3
HCA7041	Health Quality 1: Evidence-Based Decision Making for Managers Course: HCA7041 Credit: 3 The course examines the study of health and disease in populations from a health management and analytical perspective. Topics include: population health and status assessment, socio-cultural factors, epidemiological methods, study designs, statistical analysis and application, the interpretation of data, and the application of findings for managerial decision-making. Statistical topics include descriptive statistics, probability, sampling, statistical distribution, estimation, hypotheses testing, chi-square tests, and simple and multiple linear regression.	3
HI7010	Health Informatics, Information Systems and Technology Course: HI7010 Credit: 3 This course introduces the discipline of health informatics and covers emerging trends. Various information systems, technologies and applicationsutilized in the context of health and healthcare are introduced. Their characteristics, strengths, challenges, purpose and impact are taught. Impact on patients, populations and healthcare providers is emphasized. Factors influencing adoption and use of various clinical and health information systems and technologies are taught. Key clinical and health information technologies and systems such as electronic health records, health information exchanges, personal health records, public health information systems and mobile health technologies are introduced in this course.Topics such as telemedicine, interoperability and technical concepts are taught, and an evaluation framework is applied.	3
HI7072	Leveraging Analytics and Business Intelligence Tools for Healthcare Course: HI7072 Credit: 3 This course will introduce students to a variety of cutting edge analytics and business intelligence tools applicable to health or healthcare data. Both structured and unstructured data will be introduced in this course. The coursewill also address topics related to data governance and data quality and various other topics relevant to health data management. This course is predominately hands-on and students willcomplete a project to demonstrate skills acquired.Students will learn how other industries have applied similar or the same tools.	3
ECON7021	Health Care Marketplace 1: Health Economics Course: ECON7021 Credit: 3 This is the first in a series of two courses covering the Economics of Health Care. This course will provide a broad overview of the field of health economics. The course will examine how standard concepts and methods in economics can be used to understand health-related decisions made by individuals and firms, using the basic framework of economics to analyze the behavior of consumers, insurers, physicians, and hospitals. It will also study the application of economics to health care policy, with a focus on how economic analysis can assist in the development of market and non-market solutions to various health care problems. The tools of economics are applied to both managerial issues such as pricing decisions and policy issues such as the medically uninsured.Topics include economic analysis and application to decision making, health care payment methods, including Medicare's payment systems for hospitals and physicians, and risk-adjusted capitation payment systems.	3
MGMT7022	Health Care Marketplace 2: Strategic Sucess Course: MGMT7022 Credit: 3 This course follows upon HCA7021 and introduces the principles, methods and concepts of three different aspects of marketplace strategic management as it relates to health care organizations: 1) Strategic planning and management, 2) Marketing, 3) Governance. The focus is not only on the processes of strategic management, marketing and governance but also on strategic learning and development. Methods for evaluating and analyzing the environment external to the organization will include discussions of transparency, disruptive technologies and crisis prevention/management. The interaction of forces inside the organization such as marketing, governance, corporate culture, and resources will be analyzed for their impact on the organization and its strategic direction.	3
OM7042	Health Quality 2: Total Quality Management Course: OM7042 Credit: 3 The quality of health care in the United States has garnered significant attention among health care professionals and the public. This course will review: (1) the current state of the quality of health care in the United States; (2) approaches to assess quality of health care, and (3) strategies to improve the quality of care. These include the fundamentals of health program planning and evaluation, with an emphasis on developing skills in formative, outcome, and impact data collection and analysis. Emphasizes the use of the Baldrige Healthcare Criteria for Performance Excellence for designing, implementing, and improving organizational frameworks for performance excellence. Topics include program or project management, operations assessment, and improvement.	3

FAQs

How long does it take to complete the Pharmacy Leadership Graduate Certificate?

The Pharmacy Leadership Graduate Certificate is typically completed in 2 semesters or less than 1 year based on taking 2 courses per semester, which is the average pace.
Are Scholarships Available for Pharmacy Leadership Programs?

Students accepted to the UC Pharmacy Leadership program are eligible to apply for UC Foundation scholarships for tuition support. Information and the scholarship application can be found at the link below.

https://pharmacy.uc.edu/plscholarships
What are the admission requirements for the Pharmacy Leadership Graduate Certificate?
Requirements include:
- BS or PharmD degree from an accredited institution (pharmacist) OR enrollment in a PharmD program. (Student Pharmacist)
- PharmD students must have completed the required Foundational coursework to enroll (e.g. 1 year of Pharmacy School)
- PharmD students who do not have a BS degree must contact the program director to apply
- Minimum 3.0 GPA recommended
- For international students, a Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) of at least 90 (internet-based) or 235 (computer-based), or a Duolingo English Test of at least 110 is accepted.
  - Transcripts must be submitted for evaluation to an agency recognized by the National Association of Credential Evaluating Services (NACES; www.naces.org).
Please visit the Admissions Requirements page for more information.