The Healthcare Core
Health Care Technology Commercialization (Practicum with Texas Health Catalyst) gives MBA students the opportunity to work on real health care startups and work directly with the inventors and innovators. Students will learn about new ventures and startups, the FDA approval process, and more.
The Health Care Business Ecosystem introduces students to the business ecosystem of the U.S. health care industry using a multi-disciplinary approach to investigate the business structures, processes, and outcomes of health services in America. The course covers how various health care components - including biotech and pharma - work individually, and how they work (or fail to work) together to create the "health care system."
Health Care Analytics gives students access to synthetic (but realistic) operations data. Students will focus on learning from data, building and solving mathematical models, and understanding implementation challenges that may arise in practice. Business cases will be analyzed to gain insight into relevant business context. The course prepares MBA students for several career paths including health care consulting, management roles in pharmaceutical, medical devices, hospitals, clinics, and insurance forms, as well as in regulatory agencies.
Entrepreneurship and Health Innovation (College of Pharmacy) is an 8-week interdisciplinary practicum course offering students an opportunity to get hands-on experience identifying and developing ideas, market validation, and more and is a feeder into other startup paths across the University. This course is a joint effort between the Drug Dynamics Institute, the McCombs School of Business, Cockrell School of Engineering, Texas Health Catalyst, and Austin Technology Incubator (ATI).
Additional Electives
Other health care courses include:
INF 385N: Informatics: Credibility on the Web (Information): Investigation of informatics movements around the world and in various disciplines and professions, such as biomedicine, nursing, public health, education, business, law, and public affairs.
MKT 382.15: Marketing High-Tech Products: This course focuses on companies selling technology-based products and integrates the impact of strategic marketing decisions on the financial performance of the enterprise.
OM 386: Service Operations Management: This course explores the dimensions of successful service firms. It prepares students for enlightened management and suggests creative entrepreneurial opportunities. This course will study service management from an integrated viewpoint with a focus on customer satisfaction. The material will integrate operations, marketing, strategy, information technology, and organizational issues.
N395(F): Budget and Finance in Healthcare (Nursing): Conceptual and practical applications of financial management, cost analyses, and budgeting in the contemporary health care delivery system. Students will analyze concepts from economics, accounting, revenue and cost analysis, budgeting and management in relation to contemporary health care organizations, analyze theoretical and applied research from nursing and health care literature in relation to financial management and the managerial role, interpret financial statements, cost management techniques, operating budgets, and use computer programs to prepare reports for ethical decision-making in resource management.
Student Experience
Student Organizations
The McCombs MBA Healthcare Association is a leadership organization that focuses on offering unique opportunities to MBA students to learn, lead, and succeed in the highly competitive healthcare industry. It fosters greater understanding of healthcare as a business, provides career networking, and provides opportunities for students to exhibit their knowledge and skills to employers.
Campus to Community
Real-World Challenges, Real Opportunity
Each semester, MBA students have the opportunity to team up on real-world problems facing care providers in and around Austin with practicum projects. Our students have worked with Dell-Seton Medical Center, Dell Children's Medical Center, Seton Main, the Volunteer Clinic, People's Clinic, and the network of charitable hospitals across the State of Texas.
Entrepreneurship
Students who take the Health Technology and Commercialization course in partnership with TVL and Dell Med's Texas Health Catalyst Incubator get hands-on experience working directly with inventors on cutting edge medical technology and concepts.
Health Innovation Fellows (HIF)
The purpose of HIF is to promote McCombs as a place that produces leaders with the capability to impact the health care industry through innovation and leadership. HIF provides an avenue for students to experience in-depth health care programming beyond the classroom to dissect and debate the many complexities of the U.S. health care system.