Programs in healthcare administration often require their students to take an “introductory” course on healthcare. Such a class can serve many important purposes, such as building knowledge about an important sector of the economy, developing personal and professional competencies, training in a discipline, and preparing students for upper-level courses. While many introductory textbooks are available, much less information is available on how such classes are taught and what they cover. With the assistance of the AUPHA’s director of membership, we contacted faculty members (and directors) of AUPHA programs in health administration who teach (offer) an “introductory” course. We requested their introductory course syllabuses and then performed a con tent analysis. This article summarizes the findings from the content analysis regarding the purposes of such a course and the range of subjects covered. We then consider the issues, challenges, and lessons instructors face. Our goal is to assist current and future instructors, particularly new faculty tasked with this assignment, and to promote a community among us all.
Lawton R. Burns
- James Joo-Jin Kim Professor, Professor of Health Care Management
- Professor of Management
Contact Information
- Primary Email:
burnsl@wharton.upenn.edu - Office Phone:
(215) 898-3711
- office Address:
203 Colonial Penn Center
3641 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Research Interests: formal organizations, health care management, hospital-physician relationships, integrated health care, physician networks, physician practice management firms, strategic change, supply chain management
Links: CV, Personal Website
Overview
Education
PhD, University of Chicago, 1981; MBA, University of Chicago, 1984; MA, University of Chicago, 1976; BA, Haverford College, 1973
Recent Consulting
Analysis of the pharmaceutical outsourcing market, IMB, 2003-04; Antitrust implications of PHOs, Federal Trade Commission, 2004; Development of integrated delivery systems, Illinois Hospital Association, 1994-97
Career and Recent Professional Awards; Teaching Awards
2003: Board of Institute of Medicine, Health Services Research Section; 2001: Arthur Anderson Distinguished Visitor, University of Cambridge (UK); 1999:Teacher of the Year, Administrative Medicine Program, School of Medicine, University of Wisconsin; 1992-93: Edwin Crosby Memorial Fellowship, Hospital Research and Educational Trust; 1990-91: Udall Fellowship, Udall Center for Public Policy; 1997: Invited Lecture Series, Catholic University of Rome, Luiss, and National Agency for Health Care Services (Rome)
Academic Positions Held
Wharton: 1994-present (Chairperson, Health Care Systems Department, 2008-present; named James Joo-Jin Kim Professor, 1999; Director, Wharton Center for Health Management and Economics, 1999-present). Previous appointments: University of Arizona; University of Chicago. Visiting appointment: University of Wisconsin
Professional Leadership 2005-2009
Editorial Board, Health Services Research, 1994-present
Biosketch
Lawton Robert Burns, Ph.D., MBA, is the James Joo-Jin Kim Professor, Professor of Healthcare Management, and Professor of Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is also Co-Director of the Roy and Diana Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management. He received his doctorate in sociology and his MBA in health administration from the University of Chicago. Dr. Burns taught previously in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago and the College of Business Administration at the University of Arizona. Dr. Burns teaches courses on healthcare strategy, strategic change, strategic implementation, organization and management, managed care, integrated delivery networks, and the introduction to the US healthcare ecosystem.
He has analyzed many different sectors of the healthcare industry. His first two books covered the institutional supply chain (The Health Care Value Chain, Jossey-Bass, 2002) and the technology sectors in healthcare (The Business of Healthcare Innovation, Cambridge University Press, 2020, 3rd Ed). He also co-wrote a text on biomedical innovation (Managing Discovery: Harnessing Creativity to Drive Biomedical Innovation, Cambridge University Press, 2018). More recently, he has co-authored an analysis of hospital consolidation (Big Med: Megaproviders and the High Cost of Health Care in America, University of Chicago Press, 2021) and authored an introductory text (The U.S. Healthcare Ecosystem, McGraw-Hill, 2021). He recently completed a book on the retail supply chain in healthcare (The Healthcare Value Chain: Demystifying the Roles of GPOs and PBMs, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) and co-authored an analysis of why many of our favored solutions to improve healthcare do not work (Seemed Like a Good Idea, Cambridge University Press, 2022). He is also the lead editor of the major text (Healthcare Management: Organization Design and Behavior, Delmar, 2019). He has also written books on the healthcare systems in India (India’s Healthcare Industry, Cambridge University Press, 2014) and China (China’s Healthcare System and Reform, Cambridge University Press, 2017). He can be reached at: burnsL@wharton.upenn.edu.
Research
- Lawton R. Burns, Are Pharmacy Benefit Managers Unfairly Blamed for High Drug Prices? in ,.
- Lawton R. Burns, Stephen Shortell, Jennifer Hefner (Eds.), Responding to the Grand Challenges in Healthcare via Organizational Innovation – Needed Advances in Health Care Management 21 (:, 2023)
- Lawton R. Burns, Big Med’s Spread.
- Lawton R. Burns Dark Territory: Lifting The Veil On GPOs And PBMs.
- Lawton R. Burns, The Healthcare Value Chain: Demystifying the Roles of GPOs and PBMs (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)
- Mark V. Pauly, Lawton R. Burns, David A. Asch, Kevin Volpp, Flaura Winston, Mary Naylor, Ralph Muller, Rachel Werner, Seemed Like a Good Idea: Alchemy versus Evidence-Based Approaches to Healthcare Management Innovation (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2022)
- Lawton R. Burns, Stephen Shortell, Jennifer Hefner (Eds.), Responding to the Grand Challenges in Healthcare via Organizational Innovation – Advances in Health Care Management 21 (Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing, 2022)
- Lawton R. Burns, Howard Forman, Carolyn Watts (2022), Teaching the Introductory Course on the U.S. Healthcare System: Issues, Challenges, and Lessons, Journal of Health Administration Education, 39(1) (), pp. 35-60. Abstract
- Lawton R. Burns, Ingrid Nembhard, Stephen Shortell (2022), Integrating Network Theory into the Study of Integrated Healthcare, Social Science & Medicine, 296 (), p. 114664. Abstract
Healthcare policy in the United States (U.S.) has focused on promoting integrated healthcare to combat frag-
mentation (e.g., 1993 Health Security Act, 2010 Affordable Care Act). Researchers have responded by studying
coordination and developing typologies of integration. Yet, after three decades, research evidence for the benefits
of coordination and integration are lacking. We argue that research efforts need to refocus in three ways: (1) use
social networks to study relational coordination and integrated healthcare, (2) analyze integrated healthcare at
three levels of analysis (micro, meso, macro), and (3) focus on clinical integration as the most proximate impact
on patient outcomes. We use examples to illustrate the utility of such refocusing and present avenues for future
research - Lawton R. Burns, The U.S. Healthcare Ecosystem: Payers, Providers, Producers (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2021)
- All Research from Lawton R. Burns »
Teaching
Current Courses
HCMG2130 - Health Care Strategy And Management: The Business Of Health Care
This course presents an overview of the business of health and how a variety of health care organizations have gained, sustained, and lost competitive advantage amidst intense competition, widespread regulation, high interdependence, and massive technological, economic, social and political changes. Specifically, we evaluate the challenges facing health care organizations using competitive analysis, identify their past responses, and explore the current strategies they are using to manage these challenges (and emerging ones) more effectively. Students will develop generalized skills in competitive analysis and the ability to apply those skills in the specialized analysis of opportunities in producer (e.g. biopharmaceutical, medical product, information technology), purchaser (e.g. insurance), and provider (e.g. hospitals, nursing homes, physician) organizations and industry sectors. The course is organized around a number of readings, cases, presentations, and a required project.
HCMG2130001 ( Syllabus )
LSMP1210 - Lsmp Proseminar
LSMP1210301 ( Syllabus )
Past Courses
HCMG2130 - Hc Mgmt&Strat
This course presents an overview of the business of health and how a variety of health care organizations have gained, sustained, and lost competitive advantage amidst intense competition, widespread regulation, high interdependence, and massive technological, economic, social and political changes. Specifically, we evaluate the challenges facing health care organizations using competitive analysis, identify their past responses, and explore the current strategies they are using to manage these challenges (and emerging ones) more effectively. Students will develop generalized skills in competitive analysis and the ability to apply those skills in the specialized analysis of opportunities in producer (e.g. biopharmaceutical, medical product, information technology), purchaser (e.g. insurance), and provider (e.g. hospitals, nursing homes, physician) organizations and industry sectors. The course is organized around a number of readings, cases, presentations, and a required project.
HCMG8410 - Intro Health Mgmt & Econ
This course provides an introduction to the field of health care economics and management. Using an economic approach, the course will provide an overview of the evolution, structure and current issues in the health care ecosystem. It examines the unique features of health care services, products and markets, with a specific focus on the changing relationships between patients, physicians, hospitals, insurers, employers, communities, and government. In particular, the course focuses on three broad segments of the health care industry: payors, providers, and producers. NOTE: This is a required course for Wharton Graduate Health Care Management majors; it counts as an elective course for all other Wharton Graduate students. It is also open to Law School and Nursing School students with a joint Wharton Program.
HCMG8450 - US Payer Provider Strat
This course, co-taught with Brad Fluegel (former Chief Strategy Officer at Aetna, Anthem, and Walgreens and presently on the boards of several health care firms, including Fitbit and Premera Blue Cross), provides an overview of the challenges facing payers and providers in US healthcare as well as the strategies they use (or should use) to succeed. We cover all major aspects of the healthcare sector as seen from the perspective of payers and providers, starting from their core products and services (consumer preferences and health plan design, provider quality), the market environment they operate in (regulation and the role of public insurers, payment reforms, rising costs, and consolidation), and their strategic and operational responses (new organization models, mergers and acquisitions, and new ventures). The pedagogy is accordingly a mix of faculty lectures and talks by senior industry leaders to balance theory and practice.
HCMG8990 - Independent Study
Arranged with members of the Faculty of the Health Care Systems Department. For further information contact the Department office, Room 204, Colonial Penn Center, 3641 Locust Walk, 898-6861.
In the News
- Inside China's Health Care Reform Effort, LDI News - 02/24/2017 Description
Inside China’s Health Care Reform Effort
Wharton Professor’s Book Takes a Deep Dive in a Very Complicated Market
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