A new model of online health care delivery science education for mid-career health care professionals

Health care delivery science focuses on ways to improve health and health care services provided to individuals and populations. Health care professionals must be trained in health care delivery science in order to diagnose and treat the sources of health care system dysfunction and achieve better outcomes while controlling costs. The ideal model for health care delivery science training has not been fully defined, but doing so is critical especially for frontline mid-career health care professionals whose original clinical training omitted these concepts. To better prepare leaders to address the complex challenges of health care, we created a novel hybrid residential/online 18-month master's degree in health care delivery science. Key strengths of the program are the curriculum, pedagogy, teaching team and close-knit cohort. Here, we discuss the program design rationale and six years of evaluation data of a novel master of health care delivery science program. Novel online education in health care delivery science can empower inter-professional leaders in multiple leadership positions throughout health care to improve the United States health care system.