Why choose this programme?
The Master’s Degree Programme in Health Economics, Policy, and Management is a multidisciplinary programme that encompasses a wide array of courses within Economics, Political Science and Medicine. The programme also allows students to choose between a variety of elective courses within other relevant fields, and provides opportunities for taking some courses abroad. This Master's Degree aims at providing both a broad and relevant academic foundation within its core subject areas, and practical skills for a future career in management in various parts of the health sector.
The programme focuses on economic, political, and organizational analysis, health care policy evaluation and health care management in an international perspective. The approach is multidisciplinary, and the large number of elective courses allows the students to choose between either specializing in a single field, such as Health Care, Economics, Policy or Management, or taking a broader approach by combining courses from several of these fields. Students who do not have a background in medicine or the health professions are required to take a course in the concepts and mechanisms of health and disease as part of the programme.
The programme is taught in connection with the two main research areas at the Department of Health Management and Health Economics. Both areas combine academic research with applied approaches, often in connection with projects commissioned by health organizations and public authorities, or by the Norwegian Research Council.
Research in the field of health economics focuses on such areas as the economic analysis of health policies, economic incentives, normative issues such as cost-benefit analysis, determinants of hospital efficiency, factors behind the demand for health services and the labour markets for health personnel.
Research in the field of health management focuses on the organisation, management, and politics of health care, and covers such topics as hospital performance evaluation, bargaining institutions and procedures, quality of health care, benchmarking procedures, changes in leadership and organizational culture, the implementation of innovative technological solutions within healthcare and the recent re-centralization of hospital ownership in Norway.
At present there is no similar Master’s Degree programme being offered at other institutions at the university level in Norway.