Students in FranU’s Population Health Certificate program will learn:

• Population health and epidemiological concepts and methods in a variety of healthcare settings.

• The nature and function of health in society and their interactions in the processes of health and illness.

• An overview of the United States healthcare system (educational and research institutions, public and private programs, managed care organizations and integrated networks).

• How to implement, facilitate and coordinate continuous quality improvement initiatives in various healthcare environments.

• The disparities and inequalities in healthcare and how these affect health outcomes.

Population health managers play an important role in the healthcare system. Much of what a population health manager does involves analysis, critical thinking, problem-solving and utilizing leadership skills to implement processes and policies that better serve patient populations and the health system as a whole.

Using data to inform decision-making, a population health manager may look for trends or patterns in their place of work to determine opportunities for improvement, processes that need troubleshooting or solutions that address disparities. On the other hand, a manager may find anomalies in data that speak to errors within the system, missed opportunities or future issues that their team can actively work to resolve and prevent.