Graduate & Professional Degrees

This certificate program is for students holding master's degrees who wish to pursue or expand careers in health communication. Students will study the most recent theoretical and practical developments in the area of health communication and how this information can be used to improve public health as well as individual behavior.

Students take 16 units of graduate course work beyond the master's degree, of which 4 units may be cognate courses. One course must be from a preventive medicine, public health, pharmacology or other health science program that focuses on "what is communicated" in health communication.

The Department of Pharmaceutical and Health Economics (in the School of Pharmacy) offers a program of study leading to the PhD degree in Health Economics. The program focuses on microeconomics; econometrics; health economics and policy; public finance; pharmaceutical economics and policy. The program offers one track in microeconomics and a second track in pharmaceutical economics and policy.

The Health Management and Policy Programs of the Price School of Public Policy offers certificate programs in specialized areas of health care administration. The certificates are designed to provide practitioners with means for improving or updating their knowledge and experience in a challenging and professionally relevant course of study. Certificates are offered in Administration of Long Term Care Programs and Management of  Ambulatory Care Systems. Applicants for the certificate programs must make formal application for admission to the certificate program, provide transcripts of all college work, supplemented by three letters of recommendation, including one from a former instructor, a resume and a personal statement describing their career goals and the relationship of the certificate to those ends.

It is expected that applicants to the certificate programs should have graduated from a recognized college with an approximate grade point average of B in the last 60 units of college work. Non-graduates may be admitted if the director believes that there is evidence to suggest that the applicant is capable of graduate level work.

Successful completion of the certificate will not be a deciding factor in the admission decision for the degrees offered by the Health Management and Policy Programs or the Price School of Public Policy.

Gerontology Center 240

(213) 740-4893

Program Director: David Belson, PhD

This program is jointly sponsored by the Epstein Industrial and Systems Engineering Department, the USC Price School of Public Policy and the USC Keck School of Medicine and is administered by the Epstein Industrial and Systems Engineering Department. This degree is designed for students with sufficiently quantitative bachelor's degrees in engineering, the sciences or applied social science who are interested in operations management and health care applications, and whose career objectives lead to increasing technical management responsibilities in large healthcare organizations, such as hospitals. Graduates will be particularly prepared for employment in work to improve healthcare systems in terms of performance and quality. Faculty members in all three Schools jointly devised the curriculum, and may supervise directed research for elective credits. Course work will include various aspects of health care such as information systems, project management and models of care. The USC Master of Science in Health Systems Management Engineering uniquely blends management, clinical and engineering disciplines into a single degree.

Master of Science in Health Systems Management Engineering

At least 28 units are required for the degree. Students must complete 24 units of required courses in addition to 4 units of advisor approved electives. Students must maintain a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 (both overall and applied) to meet graduation requirements. Admitted students may count courses taken for completion of the Graduate Certificate in Health Systems Operations toward this degree. This program is available via distance education.

Applicants to the program are expected to have mathematical competence such as provided by an undergraduate degree in engineering; understanding of basic statistics; and competence in microeconomics. Admitted students who do not meet the course work requirements will be assigned courses to complete the deficiencies.

This graduate certificate is designed for students with bachelor's degrees in applied social science, engineering or the sciences, who are interested in operations management and health care topics. This program is available via distance education.

Academic Director: Terry Sanger, MD, PhD, Provost Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Neurology, Biokinesiology, and Physical Therapy

Administrative Director: George Tolomiczenko, PhD, Assistant Professor, Neurology

This program offers current second-year USC PhD engineering students and first-year MD students an opportunity to learn about and gain experience in medical device and process innovation. Through project-based and interdisciplinary collaboration, students will augment their current programs with a set of courses and lab experiences linking medical and engineering research groups. By applying design-informed approaches toward problem identification and solution prototyping, students will be involved in all the steps of medical device or process innovation from conception to commercialization. The program aims to create interdisciplinary, boundary-spanning, inventive entrepreneurs seeking early practical experience with device and method innovation in health care. Program participants will form bonds with a group of like-minded medical students and engineers who will be their mentors, colleagues and contacts as they advance in their careers.

The courses unique to the program include a seminar sequence (Topics in Health, Technology and Engineering), which must be taken during the first two years of involvement with the HTE@USC program, a case studies sequence taken during the second year and a research course to earn project-related credits:

The certificate in Healthcare Analytics and Operations is an industry-focused program designed to produce graduates whose backgrounds in life sciences, patient care, drug management and other healthcare-related areas are enhanced by knowledge and skills appropriate for a highly complex and regulated healthcare business environment.

The program requires 12 academic units of formal course work that is selected in consultation with an adviser. Course requirements normally include a minimum of four courses from the Healthcare Decision Analysis program that emphasize data analytics, modeling, operations, healthcare insurance and delivery. Recommended course work may include courses available in other programs at the School of Pharmacy and other departments of the university. These courses will be selected in consultation with program advisers. Students should develop a specific plan of study in consultation with the graduate advisers before beginning the program.

The Healthcare and Biopharmaceutical Business (HBB) Certificate is a 12-unit educational program that is offered within the Biopharmaceutical Marketing (BPMK) Master of Science program and is intended for those individuals wishing to gain a working knowledge and proficiency in issues related to healthcare organization management and corporate strategy, biopharmaceutical product development and life-cycle management, and the U.S. healthcare system infrastructure, including healthcare services delivery, insurance, and managed care. Students are expected to enroll each semester until the program is completed. Students must complete at least 12 units of course work selected in consultation with an adviser. 

datascience.usc.edu

Program Director (Data Science): Yolanda Gil, PhD
Program Co-Director (Biomedical Engineering): Brent J. Liu, PhD

The USC Master of Science in Healthcare Data Science provides students with the knowledge and skills needed for applying data science methods to healthcare-related data in a variety of contexts.

The degree consists of a set of required core courses in data science and healthcare as well as a set of electives in both areas enabling students to pursue specific areas in more depth. On the data science side, students will learn about machine learning, privacy, and data visualization, data management, and semantic data models. On the healthcare side, students will be trained to work with data in healthcare settings as well as on clinical workflow and medical technology systems such as image acquisition systems and other healthcare informatics systems in order to understand where healthcare data originates and how to extract specific information from healthcare data management systems.

The five-course core of the program will provide students in the program with an understanding of:

● the requirements and techniques needed to collect, curate, and analyze health and healthcare related data collected by healthcare providers and organizations through exposure to clinical workflow and systems such as medical imaging and Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems;

● the design and development of medical devices and systems (e.g., picture archiving and communication systems, emergency medical records, mobile health devices, etc.) used to collect, monitor, and store health-related variables and data; and

● the use of emerging technologies and methods in data science and how they can be applied to patient health and healthcare delivery processes, as well as to clinical research and translational medicine.

The program core coupled with the program electives will also provide the data analysis background needed to improve business processes in and between hospitals, insurance companies, public health agencies, and other components of the healthcare ecosystem and allow students to gain experience in finding and articulating challenges in healthcare settings that can be met through integrated engineering solutions.

Through data science electives, students may choose courses in advanced topics covering data privacy (CSCI 530, CSCI 548, DSCI 529), data mining (DSCI 552 and DSCI 553), user interface design (DSCI 555 and DSCI 556), ethics (DSCI 531), and knowledge technologies (DSCI 558). 

Through healthcare electives, students may choose to study healthcare processes (PM 504 and PM 508), applications of data science techniques using biostatistics data (BME 423, BME 514, BME 515, PM 511aL, PM 511bL, PM 511cL), and biomedical engineering devices and systems related to healthcare (BME 514, BME 525, PM 538).

Students may also choose to take a capstone elective course, DSCI 560, with real-world projects that will enable them to acquire practical experience with data science.

Students with requisite programming knowledge are allowed to test out of DSCI 510. An entrance exam will be held at three time periods: two weeks before the start of the semester, one week before the start of the semester, and during the first week of the semester. Students who pass the exam will be allowed to skip DSCI 510, and may replace that with an elective.

The Healthcare Decision Analysis (HCDA) Certificate program gives students the tools and knowledge to succeed in the complex world of healthcare data analytics, international access and reimbursement, product pricing and value assessment, insurance operations and design, along with competitive business intelligence. Course work is typically delivered in nontraditional formats such as intensive weekend sessions, Webcast lectures, and distance learning tools. Courses must be taken on-site. Students should confirm their specific course work plan in consultation with the graduate adviser before beginning the program. Students who have bachelor's degrees from accredited colleges or universities must submit an application for graduate study through the Healthcare Decision Analysis program. GRE scores are not required for admission to the certificate program. Students are expected to enroll each semester until the program is completed.

Students must complete at least 12 units of course work selected in consultation with the program adviser. The certificate can be completed on a part-time basis but must be finished within five years.