Clinical Operations Capstone and Practicum I

CSO 750A Subject & Catalog Number

Description

The capstone experience is a required component of the Master's program. The experience will be an intensive hands-on experience at one of the Harvard affiliated hospitals and is targeted to allow students to apply the tools, strategies, and methods from their didactic courses to develop a solution to an evidence-based operational problem seen in healthcare delivery. Students will be paired with a mentor from within a healthcare organization to oversee their work. At the beginning of the capstone (ie: over the fall term), the mentor and student will identify a topic and specific problem to address or investigate. Ideally this will be an issue that is germane to both the student and mentor's work and organization. They will perform evidence-based research into the issue, the impact on care, and best practices, if they exist. They will then analyze and describe the current system of care surrounding the problem within the mentor's organization, and design an intervention. They will construct an implementation plan along with measures, and a method for assessing and displaying outcomes. Finally, they will share early findings from implementation. Examples could include the understanding and updating of budgetary or business planning processes, the creation of system solutions to solve workflow, implementing innovation or new service, performance improvement, supply chain management, human resources management, or clinical research integration.