The Healthcare Systems Engineering program provides the option for a Certificate in Healthcare Systems Engineering. The certificate may be completed as a standalone curriculum, paired with another Master's degree from Lehigh, or taken on the path towards completing a Master of Engineering Degree in Healthcare Systems Engineering. The certificate is especially useful for professionals who look to acquire only a subset of the tools taught through the program, or combine a Healthcare Systems Engineering perspective with other courses of study, such a Master in Management Science & Engineering, Industrial & Systems Engineering, or Business Administration.
To complete the Certificate program, students must complete 12 credits: 6 credits (2 courses) must be selected from the Healthcare Core and 6 credits (2 courses) must be selected from the Systems Engineering Foundation.
Healthcare Core Courses (Select 2)
The state of healthcare from economic, systems, quality, and historical perspectives. Components of the healthcare system including, facilities, delivery and treatment systems, and personnel. System costs, reimbursement methods and financial aspects in healthcare. Healthcare policy, laws and ethics. System performance measures including access, cost effectiveness and quality of care.
The dimensions of healthcare quality and their definitions, quality metrics, accreditation and other benchmarking and evaluation methods. Change management, project planning and team management. Continuous improvement tools including “lean”, “six-sigma”, and “TQM”.
Engineering economics in healthcare; value metrics (net present value, return on investment, etc.), cost-benefit analysis, capital projects and improvements. Accounting methods in healthcare systems. Reimbursement methods, organizations, and alternatives. Financial strategy, planning, pricing and capital formation in “for”, and “not for” profit settings.
Introduction to information systems in healthcare. Components of the system; electronic medical records, patient monitoring and data collection (clinical information systems), ancillaries (lab, pharmacy, radiology), imaging and digital technology, financial, inventory and management information systems. Enterprise systems in healthcare, IT driven cost, efficiency and treatment quality metrics. Data warehousing, sharing, mining, protection and privacy issues.
Systems Engineering Foundation Courses (Select 2)
Applications of discrete and continuous simulation techniques in modeling industrial systems. Simulation using a high-level simulation language. Design of simulation experiments.
Experimental procedures for sorting out important causal variables, finding optimum conditions, continuously improving processes, and trouble-shooting. Applications to laboratory, pilot plant and factory.
Modeling and analysis of operations research problems using techniques from mathematical programming. Linear programming, integer programming, multi-criteria optimization, stochastic programming and nonlinear programming using an algebraic modeling language.
Introduction to stochastic process modeling and analysis techniques and applications. Generalization of the Poisson process; renewal theory, queuing, and reliability; Brownian motion and stationary processes.
The certificate option is available to students and professionals from a variety of backgrounds. To enable all our students to be successful through the rigorous engineering coursework they complete, two courses are offered for students who need to build or refresh quantitative knowledge, particularly in the areas of probability, statistics, and linear algebra, which are the areas of mathematics relevant to the problems and tools in healthcare systems engineering.
Mathematics Prerequisites
A review of linear algebra and an introduction to quantitative analysis, manipulation of matrices, core concepts associated with systems of linear equations and linear optimization, algebraic and geometric models. The credits for this course cannot be applied to any undergraduate or graduate degree offered by the Industrial & Systems Engineering Department or the Healthcare Systems Engineering master’s program.
Random variables, probability functions, expected values, statistical inference, hypothesis testing, regression and correlation, analysis of variance, introduction to design of experiments, and fundamentals of quality control.
Certificate in Healthcare Systems Engineering - Curriculum Snapshot
Students interested in continuing towards the completion of a Master of Engineering (M.Eng.)in Healthcare Systems Engineering may apply all the courses completed as part of the Certificate towards the M.Eng. degree. A formal application to the Master's program is necessary.