MSc/PGDip in Health Economics Practice (Online)

Course Code: CKC07 Full-time & Part-time

Costs: 2017/2018 Irish/EU €7,000 (per academic year) full-time. The part-time course fee is half the full-time fee in the particular year of study. [2017/2018 Irish/EU €3,500 full-time (Part 2: MSc in Health Economics Practice]

Entry Requirements: You will need a degree in business and/or economics OR a degree with at least a 2H2 grade in a health related discipline OR for those with degrees or equivalent outside the above categories, applicants should have a minimum of 4 years’ experience as health sector practitioners or professionals in which case they may be accepted on the basis of recognition of prior experiential learning.

Closing Date: See details in application procedure section below

Next Intake: 11 September 2017

The Postgraduate Diploma in Health Economics Practice is a practice-oriented course, designed to give students an excellent grounding in the use of economic decision-making in the health sector.  Economic decision-making is becoming increasingly important in the health area, with scarce resources being available for ever-increasing needs.  This course provides students with transferrable skills that can be used in a healthcare business or policy environment.  The course recognises that healthcare is as much a business as a policy area, and this is reflected in modules on health care markets and health care innovations.

The Postgraduate Diploma in Health Economics Practice (Part I of the MSc) includes 60 credits of taught modules.  The core modules examine economic decision-making in health, in terms of financing, resource allocation, distribution and delivery of healthcare.

The other modules relate to evaluating health outcomes, health services resourcing, research skills and methods for health economics, healthcare markets and innovations in health practice.

The course is examined entirely through continuous assessment, including written assignments, participation in online discussions, reflective learning logs, and presentations.  Emphasis is placed on transferrable skills and the personal, professional and intellectual development of students.

The course has numerous links with healthcare practitioners and businesses, and this is reflected in guest lectures and online live cases, where students are set a real-life problem by a healthcare practitioner or organisation and asked to develop solutions to this problem.

Students who successfully complete the Postgraduate Diploma and achieve a minimum of 60% average in their assessment may transfer their registration onto the MSc Health Economics Practice, which involves a six-month placement in the healthcare sector.  (Those already working in the sector may continue in their positions.)  During this six months, students will be expected to address a problem in the organisation for which they are working, using economic decision-making techniques.