Improving Global Health: Focusing on Quality and Safety
Access to healthcare services is critical – but is it enough?
The course is designed for those who care about health and healthcare and wish to learn more about how to measure and improve that care – for themselves, for their institutions, or for their countries.
2-4 hours a week
What You'll Learn
Improving access to healthcare is only as useful as the quality of care provided. Many agree that quality is important – but what is it? How do we define it? How do we measure it? And most importantly, how might we make it better?
The course is designed for those who care about health and healthcare and wish to learn more about how to measure and improve that care – for themselves, for their institutions, or for their countries. Each session will be interactive and provide concrete tools that students can use. We will empower you to raise questions, propose concrete solutions, and promote change.
We have assembled leading thinkers from around the globe – not only people who are experts – but people with real, hands-on experience running organizations, hospitals, and ministries of health. So join us – whether you are a physician, nurse, or another healthcare provider, if you are a student of medicine, public health, or health policy, or a patient who simply cares about getting good care – this course is for you.
The course will be delivered via edX and connect learners around the world. By the end of the course, participants will understand:
- The relationship between quality and population health
- A framework for understanding and thinking about healthcare quality
- Approaches to quality measurement
- The role of information and communication technology in assessing and improving quality
- Tools and contextual knowledge to improve the quality delivered in health systems
Your Instructors
Ashish Jha
Director, Harvard Global Health Institute, Harvard University; K.T. Li Professor of Health Policy, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Ashish K. Jha, M.D., M.P.H. is Director for the Harvard Global Health Institute, K.T. Li Professor of Health Policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a practicing Internal Medicine physician at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System.
Dr. Jha’s research interests lie in improving the quality and costs of healthcare delivery systems with a specific focus on the impact of policy efforts. His work has focused on a broad set of issues including how best to measure and improve quality, the role of information technology, transparency, and financial incentives to improve care, and how leadership and management are central to the delivery of high value healthcare.
With a strong body of research on the US health system, he founded the Harvard Initiative on Global Health Quality (HIGHQ) in 2014 through which he has worked around the globe to support the design and evaluation of policies aimed at improving care quality.
Ways to take this course
When you enroll in this course, you will have the option of pursuing a Verified Certificate or Auditing the Course.
A Verified Certificate costs $149 and provides unlimited access to full course materials, activities, tests, and forums. At the end of the course, learners who earn a passing grade can receive a certificate.
Alternatively, learners can Audit the course for free and have access to select course material, activities, tests, and forums. Please note that this track does not offer a certificate for learners who earn a passing grade.