MSc in Health Service Improvement and Evaluation modules
The MSc in Health Service Improvement and Evaluation includes 6 modules taught between October and June. Your final dissertation will bring the content of all modules together and be submitted at the end of August.
You will begin the MSc with an introduction to the concepts of a “health system” and its key components, including health system governance and health service delivery. This module serves to put the course in context within the wider field of global health and delve into foundational concepts that frame our approach to health service improvement and evaluation throughout the course.
By the end of the module students will be able to:
- Define and differentiate the core concepts of health systems, health services, and systems thinking, and illustrate how these concepts apply in diverse global contexts.
- Understand how social determinants of health, international targets, politics, and ethical considerations influence health system priorities, service improvements, and evaluation needs.
- Compare different ontological and epistemological paradigms, and reflect on how these perspectives shape research questions, methods, and interpretations in health systems and implementation research.
This module covers topics related to research methodologies and methods used in health services implementation and evaluation, introduction to epidemiology and statistics, study designs used in health services research and evaluation, evidence synthesis, and critical appraisal of existing evidence and literature.
By the end of the module students will be able to:
- Interpret and critically appraise evidence that uses various research methodologies including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods evidence.
- Describe and justify the use of different methods (and combinations of methods) to address various HSIE questions and evaluate complex interventions.
- Develop a research question and apply methods and tools to design a research plan appropriate for HSIE.
This module focuses on the aims of health services, as well as how to investigate health service delivery and “diagnose” system challenges. Typically, health services are expected to deliver high quality, safe healthcare that then results in good outcomes. Taking different health system, population, and user perspectives, you will be able to appraise the different dimensions of quality and safety and how important outcomes may vary depending on one’s perspective.
By the end of the module students will be able to:
- Compare the different ways of conceptualising and assessing quality, safety, and outcomes of health care / provision of health services.
- Describe the range of health system factors influencing quality, safety, and outcomes of health services at the macro-, meso- and micro-levels of the health system.
- Analyse how services are delivered and what influences frontline care delivery, including organisational and human factors, and teamwork and the roles and experiences of health service users / patients.
- Apply a range of techniques and tools for ‘system diagnosis’ to analyse quality and safety outcomes and their determinants that enable articulation of the possible causal pathways leading to these outcomes, with an understanding that can provide the foundation for purposeful (theory informed) intervention (that feeds directly into work in Module 4 and 5).
Module 4 focuses on equipping students to design robust, theory-driven, and context-appropriate interventions, services, and programmes. You will learn how interventions and programmes contribute to improving quality, safety, and health outcomes, and will use theory to unpack the mechanisms through which these improvements work.
By the end of the module students will be able to:
- Articulate the underlying assumptions and mechanisms of action of interventions and improvements and link them to the desired outcomes and indicators of success.
- Design a context-appropriate, theory-driven intervention or improvement to respond to a specific health challenge by integrating evidence, stakeholder perspectives, and design principles.
- Compare and contrast a range of relevant frameworks, theories, and models, and apply them to develop a strategy for implementing an intervention, prioritising approaches suited to real-world health system constraints.
Starting with the outcomes and indicators of success, this module will progress through examples of different types of evaluations and explore how each is best suited to answer specific research questions. You will also learn practical skills such as understanding the resource requirements to implement different evaluation designs and the implications of different evaluations for communicating with different stakeholder groups.
By the end of the module students will be able to:
- Demonstrate the appropriate use and interpretation of different types of evaluation and measurement tools and methods, aligned with the intended goals of the evaluation and adapted to evolving contexts and needs.
- Critically appraise diverse evaluation plans with respect to their intended endpoints and analyse the key components and stages of the health programme evaluation process.
- Design data collection tools and techniques that align with the specific objectives of evaluating a health programme intervention.
- Evaluate the influence of contextual, resource and other factors on the effectiveness and implementation of evaluations.
This unique module focuses on cross-cutting topics that increase your employability as a graduate of this MSc. It runs across all three terms in parallel to the other modules, emphasising practical skills that are essential for understanding and undertaking health service diagnosis, intervention design, implementation, and evaluation, as well as the subsequent dissemination of the findings from the work to ensure tangible impact in the real world.
Topics include:
- The ethics of health system research and practice
- Leadership and teamwork skills
- Communication skills
- Academic research and technical writing skills
- Community and stakeholder engagement
- Project management skills
By the end of the module students will be able to:
- Critically appraise ethical issues in global health research and practice and apply ethical consideration to understanding and intervening in complex health systems
- Implement an understanding of team dynamics and the role of individuals to effectively work within a team and analyse and apply key management and leadership frameworks to shift team behaviours.
- Demonstrate analytical writing and spoken communication and presentation skills for health systems programmes and research
- Apply research skills to search for, screen, identify and evaluate appropriate evidence
- Compare various approaches to stakeholder engagement and public and patient engagement for complex health interventions