Health Services Organisation and Evaluation

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Acceptability and satisfaction with services
• The concept of need for health care, unmet need and health care needs assessment
• Need, demand and supply of health care, and the appropriateness of health care
• The structure of health services in terms of primary, secondary and tertiary care, and lay and formal health care
• The challenges facing health services in low, middle and high income countries
• Sources of data on the performance of health care services
• Inputs/structures, process and outcomes and how to assess the effectiveness/ quality of services
• Different methods of organising and funding health care (including resource allocation)
• The equity of health care (including user need, inverse care law, accessibility)

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Critique health care evaluations
• Design an evaluation of health care service delivery
• Interpret data about the performance of health services.

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Communicate epidemiological concepts, data and information

• Sources of routine data on health care
• Understanding key concepts: primary, secondary, tertiary; structure, process and outcome; need, demand, supply; equity, effectiveness, efficiency, quality
• Methods of evaluation

Teaching and learning methods

A variety of methods will be used including lectures, active participatory methods, case studies of health care data and research, e-learning, practical exercises, guided reading, group study and individual study.

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Black N, Gruen R (2005). Understanding health services. Open University Press.

Smith S, Sinclair D, Raine R, Reeves B (2005). Health care evaluation. Open University Press.

Jessop M, Gulliford M (2020). Healthcare public health: improving health services through population science. Open University Press.

Tsang C, Cromwell D (2017). Health Care Evaluation. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Gurol-Urganci I, Campbell F, Black N (2017). Understanding Health Services. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Assessment strategy

The assessment includes two summative elements that are a multiple choice question (MCQ) quiz and an individual written assignment related to health care systems.

The pass mark for the written assignment and module is 50%. You must also pass the MCQ quiz by achieving a pass mark of 80% or above. If you fail the MCQ quiz you are allowed to take it again until you pass within the specified time period. If you have failed the module, you will have the opportunity to submit work at the next referral (re-sit) opportunity. On passing your referral, your final module mark will be capped at 50%.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External