Comparative Healthcare Systems

Course Overview

Comparative Healthcare Systems introduces students to healthcare systems with an overview of the healthcare systems of the UK and the United States. The course explores basic elements of healthcare both domestically and internationally. The roles and responsibilities of various categories of healthcare workers as well as emerging healthcare issues are introduced within the framework of interdisciplinary models of healthcare financing and delivery. The course also discusses the ways that a country’s history has influenced the evolution of its health system.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Professional/Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning strategies for this course will include:

A minimum of 36 contact hours, typically to include interactive group teaching, co-curriculars, individual meetings, and in-class presentations and exams.

Course information and supplementary materials are available on the University’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

Students will receive individualised developmental feedback on their work for this course.

Students are required to attend and participate in all the formal and timetabled sessions for this course. Students are also expected to manage their directed learning and independent study in support of the course.

Assessment

Formative

Students will be formatively assessed in class through class activities, and during office hours. Formative assessments are ones that do not count towards the final grade but will provide students with developmental feedback.

Summative

Further information on the structure of summative assessment elements can be found in the Summative Assessment Briefs.

Feedback

Students will receive feedback in a variety of ways: written (including via email correspondence); oral (within office hours or on an ad hoc basis) and indirectly through class discussion.

Feedback on examinations is provided through generic internal examiners’ reports and are made available to the student on the VLE. For all other summative assessment methods, feedback is made available to the student either via email, the VLE or another appropriate method.

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is used as part of the approval/modification process only.

Books 

• Harry A. Sultz and Kristina M. Young, Health Care USA: Understanding Its Organization and Delivery, 9th ed. (2018).
• American Psychological Association (2009). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th Ed.). Washington, DC [sources available online: http://www.apastyle.org/products/asc-for-students.aspx]
• Sultz, H. and Young, K. (2018). Health Care USA: Understanding Its Organization and Delivery (9th Edition), Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
• Greener, I. (2008), Healthcare in the UK: Understanding continuity and change, Policy Press: Bristol, UK
• Gurol-Urganci, I., Campbell, F., and Black, N. (2017) Understanding Health Services, Open University Press: London, UK
• Greener, I. (2021) Comparing Health Systems, Policy Press: Bristol, UK

Indicative Topics

Students will typically study the following topics:

• Health care financing
• Roles of health organisations and professionals
• Access to care
• New models of care
• Health care quality

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