Core and Theoretical Courses (21 Credits)

1. Principles of Data Analytics

With the large volume of data in various domain-specific applications in recent years, it is crucial to interpret and understand data in a scientific way. Data analytics, an essential method for identifying the hidden patterns and critical information from data, have been widely employed due to the rapid development of artificial intelligence and big data analytic techniques in recent years. In this course, students will explore the foundation, principle, methods, and potential applications of data analytics. Specifically, the course will contain four modules, including data models in real life, analytical tools, data extraction, and data visualisation.

2. Data Analytics in Health and Health Services

The recent advances in information technology have made it more convenient and efficient to collect and analyse various kinds of big data to support decisions on health policies and predictions of human diseases. This course focuses on key technologies and tools that support data-driven smart health service delivery. The course will introduce students to different sources of big data (e.g., surveillance infrastructure and wearable sensors). It will provide multiple cases and examples in real-world to help students better understand conceptual and practical issues related to data structure, how to create and collect data, data storage, data management, and techniques for data descriptions and analyses for health and healthcare. Students will be engaged in statistical programming and health and healthcare data analytics through hands-on activities. In addition, the course will cover the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) to help students answer the question of "where" in health services delivery. GIS has been used extensively in epidemiology study (e.g., disease surveillance) and the healthcare industry (e.g., resource planning). Hands-on GIS tutorials and spatial application examples in public health and healthcare will be introduced and discussed.

3. Healthcare Operations Management

Healthcare is the maintenance or improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, recovery, or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Operations management is essential for the provision of healthcare services, and it is primarily concerned with the delivery of quality services promptly while controlling costs. This course is designed to introduce the key concepts, practices and tools that have been developed for service operation management with specific applications in the healthcare industry. The course also demonstrates the how-to of analysing, designing and managing a complex healthcare system.

4. Gerontechnology and Innovation in Health Services

The course is in two parts. In the first part, students will be introduced assistive technologies and equipment for older persons such as telemonitoring, telehealth, assistive, ICT technologies and gerontechnological devices. Students will also be exposed to cutting-edge technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics in health service delivery. In the second part, students will be trained to use human-centred technology design methods and undertake hands-on experience in assistive technology and automation design such as user experience design, home automation and machine ethics to equip them with skills and knowledge necessary for developing effective healthcare services and products. They will have real-time experience in harvesting and applying big data in decisions about care delivery relating to the maintenance or improvement of the physical and mental health of older persons.

5. Understanding Public Health and Epidemiology

This course will introduce students to fundamental and advanced concepts, measures and approaches in public health and epidemiology. Students will learn about nature and historical perspectives of public health and epidemiology, determinants of health and diseases, epidemiology study design, mapping diseases and health needs, measuring health and diseases, controlling epidemics. This course will provide a foundation for other courses.

6. Understanding Health and Social Care

This course will explore major theoretical debates and practice issues in health and social care. It will enhance the understanding of social aspects and ethical dilemmas in health and care services for people in vulnerable conditions. Upon completing this course, students of the HAM programme will learn to incorporate social care and services dimensions to their analysis of healthcare operations. The course will give attention to the data dimensions and implications in health and social care.

7. Policy and Resource Management Issues in Health Systems

In the course, students will be introduced to different kinds of policies relating to healthcare and public health. Students will learn how various types of health data are extracted to shape and inform health policies. The course will border on issues relating to health infrastructure and coverage, health financing, health personnel training and retention, the sustainability of health systems, and health education. The course will be delivered through a series of practitioner seminars. Policy analysts and healthcare professionals will be invited to offer empirical perspectives on policies and the realities of their implementations.

Elective courses (3 Credits Each)

Students must select one of the following courses:

8. Managing Service Users and Stakeholders

In this course, theoretical, philosophical and practical discussions will be explored about ways of incorporating experiences, ideas and expectations of potential service users in the design and delivery of health and social services. Students will learn about approaches to establish and maintain a strong and valuable working relationship with service users and other stakeholders. They will also be led to examine the ethical boundaries in the relationship with different stakeholders and identify factors that enhance or inhibit the involvement of service users in service delivery.

9. Chinese Medicine in Health and Social Services

Chinese Medicine (CM) has been found to be a cost-effective method in disease prevention and treatment. Hence, more and more health and social care workers are introducing CM in their practice and public engagement activities. Thus, some fundamental knowledge of CM is useful and important in the proper planning and management of health-related social services. The course is divided into two parts. The first part provides students general understanding of the basic theories, working principles, methods for health promotion and disease healing in Chinese medicine. This comprises an introduction to the five key areas in Chinese medicine, including the basic theories of Chinese medicine, methods of diagnosis and treatment, acupuncture & moxibustion, Chinese medicinal materials, and Chinese herbal formulary.

In the second part of the course, students will learn and experience how CM is being delivered in a real-life context. They will be arranged 8 hours of attachment at a Chinese Medicine Clinic or a CM service provider. The course written assignment and group presentation will be linked with this work experience and theories and debates from lectures and seminars.

10. Marketing Analytics and Intelligence

Marketing analytics is the intersection of Marketing and Data Science, generating business insights and offering new opportunities for a competitive advantage. New digital technologies have fundamentally changed various aspects of marketing practice over the past years and have led to a dramatic shift in the quantity and quality of information we are able to access, analyse, and act. The course discusses the cutting edge techniques used to unlock the predictive potential of data analysis to enhance marketing performance, strategic management, and operational efficiency and provides students with hand on experience in the application of analytical tools and techniques, to real problem.

11. Health Service and Ethics

The course offers an introduction to some of the most fundamental ethical issues in the broader health services provision, taking into account the perspective of the service users (e.g. social care users, patients), healthcare providers and other professionals working in this sector. Following a brief introduction to some of the main contemporary approaches to moral theory and reasoning, the course will discuss, among other things: the value of health services and its relation to well-being; the purpose and value of consent, trust and autonomy in the user-provider relationship; principles and problems related to justice, equality and fairness in health services (including the distribution of limited resources). Other topics will include ethical research on human and animal subjects. Where possible, case studies will be utilised to discuss these issues.

12. Applied Health Psychology in Social Service Settings

Health psychology focuses on the role of psychosocial processes in health promotion and maintenance, illness prevention and treatment, and the relationship between psychosocial factors and physiological processes involved in health and diseases. The course provides a general introduction to the field of health psychology with a focus in the application to social service settings. We will study the biopsychosocial model of health and illness, and examine its contribution to understanding: a) health promotion and illness prevention, b) becoming ill and adopting the sick role, and c) coping with chronic illness. In each domain, we will discuss and critically evaluate the basic research, explanatory theories, and interventions developed or used by health psychologists. Finally, the course enmeshes you in the theory of, techniques for, and research on how psychology can help people live longer, healthier lives.

13. Sleep, Health, and Everyday Life

Why is sleep so important that we need to spend one-third of our life on this (in) activity? This course will provide a basic introduction to how sleep is regulated and measured, and how sleep changes across the lifespan. The importance of sleep in multiple age groups and in optimising various aspects of health will be discussed. This course will also address how sleep can be improved. Sleep research in Asian societies will be reviewed, where appropriate, to help students understand some of the topics in a local context.

Project (6 Credits)

14. Health Analytics and Management Project

This is a capstone for HAM. The project can be undertaken in three ways. First, students can carry out an empirical research study on any selected topic relating to health analytics and operations management in the health sector. In this project, students must gather primary data. Second, students can utilise some of the various analytical techniques and approaches they have learned in the programme to analyse secondary data in response to a well-defined research question. The final approach shall entail a report generated through participation in an internship programme with a relevant entity such as a hospital (including Chinese medicine clinic), a business involved in health service or logistics provision and non-governmental organisations offering health-related services. Working with supervisors, students are expected to complete the chosen task independently.