Health Economics and Clinical Outcomes Research (HECOR) - M.S.HECOR - M.S.
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Program at a Glance
Credit Hours
Year Program
Per Credit Hour
Accredited
Shape the future of healthcare with a Master of Science in Health Economics and Clinical Outcomes Research (HECOR) from Xavier University. Offered 100% online, this program prepares students to conduct comparative research and use real-world evidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions.
Designed for working professionals and people with a passion for using the latest health data to improve care, Xavier’s 39-credit hour program features coursework that includes lectures, applied analysis exercises, group activities, discussion and case studies led by experienced full and part-time faculty who have practiced in the HECOR field.
Graduates of the program will learn to conduct research that generates evidence on the effectiveness, benefits and harms of different treatment options in order to make informed healthcare decisions — skills needed to pursue impactful careers as health care analysts and administrators in the private and government health services industry, including public health agencies, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, hospitals and clinical research organizations.
The program is designed as an intensive part-time program to be completed entirely online. Students may complete the program in as little as 2 years with courses offered in the fall, spring and summer terms.
Yes, several of the courses in the Master’s of Health Services Administration are equivalent to the HECOR courses.
The tuition rate for the online HECOR program is $680 per credit hour. The total cost of the degree program will vary, depending upon transfer credits awarded, additional fees and the cost of textbooks/materials. See the Tuition page for more information.
Yes; however, we only schedule interviews with applicants who we feel are qualified after an initial review of their application.
Applications are reviewed as they are completed. Students will know within 2 to 3 days of filing their completed application if they are approved for an interview. Students will find out if they are accepted into the program within 2 to 3 weeks of the interview.
Students are encouraged to enroll at least 1 week before the class start date. However, cohort size is limited to approximately 15 students. A student can commit and hold his or her place by contacting their Enrollment Specialist at (855)815-3054, and by registering for classes and paying the Bursar.
Students must register 1 week prior to class start unless given special approval by the program director.
We have program start dates in August and January of each year.
Students may be able to transfer up to 6 credit hours upon approval by the program director, department chair and university. Students desiring to transfer credit for advanced standing must meet with the program director prior to the start of their first course to review the request.
The 39-hour program is designed to be completed in 2 years with 2 to 3 courses (6 to 8 credit hours) per semester, including summer. This will be part-time for most students.
Students can take up to 3 courses per session.
The program is designed to be completed in 2 years. The program must be completed within 6 years per Xavier University standards.
Participation expectations vary by professor. Students are not required to log in at specific times during most courses. However, professors have the option of including mandatory or optional log in times for online sessions in their courses.
The online courses include components such as readings, activities, video lectures, discussion boards and other peer interaction, tests, quizzes and group projects. Most courses do not include mandatory login times; however, they are synchronously paced – students progress through the course together according to the scheduled course content and activities.
Yes, HECOR students will have the opportunity to participate in interprofessional online work to gain experiential learning that complements coursework and demonstrate mastery of project management skills that are crucial to postgraduate success.
Students should have their own PC or MAC computer with a webcam, the full Microsoft Office Suite and high-speed internet connection. A Google Chromebook or Tablet is not sufficient. Access to SAS is provided without charge to Xavier students through the use of Virtual Desktop. Some courses may require additional software that, similar to textbooks, students must purchase for personal use. Generally, these software packages have academic pricing that is comparable to a textbook price.
Xavier uses CANVAS.
Students should expect to dedicate about 10 hours per class per week on average. Please note that some weeks may require more hours and others may require fewer.
Office hours vary with each faculty member, but all Xavier faculty members make themselves available to students through other options such as phone, chat, email, text, etc.
Xavier’s 39-credit hour online master’s degree in health economics and clinical outcomes research prepares students with strong skills in statistics, health outcomes and economics and population health. The flexible program concludes with a capstone project, which demonstrates the skills and knowledge gained throughout the program’s coursework.
Online HECOR Core Courses (9 credits)
The core courses will expose you to a general overview of HECOR. They introduce a number of contemporary approaches to comparative effectiveness research and economic evaluation. You will be introduced to epidemiologic concepts, skills and data, the application of epidemiology to population health and health services and to the application of epidemiologic literature in health services. The core courses conclude with a foundation of basic ethical theory and its application to HECOR.
This course will expose students to a general overview of health economics and clinical outcomes research (HECOR). The topics covered in this course represent a broad selection of major themes in the field; each topic will provide students with the opportunity to develop their understanding of the field as well as learn how economists, epidemiologists and statisticians think about and conduct HECOR research.
Students will be introduced to epidemiologic concepts, skills and data; the application of epidemiology to population health and health services; and the application of epidemiologic literature in health services management through an applied project using a health status analysis. Methods to determine risk factors for health problems will be discussed and examined in this project.
This course is a graduate-level introduction to basic ethical theory, language and methodology needed to critically examine contemporary cases in HECOR including such topics as health informatics, health data use, patient confidentiality, large-scale data management, fraud and retrospective analyses. The course will cover the tension of patient-centered vs. population health research, and the use of personal health records for post-market studies. Students will investigate ethical and practical issues by participating in and leading discussions and written reflective case analysis.
Online Statistics & Analytics Courses (10 credits)
The first course in the statistics block is an introductory statistics course. This foundation is then advanced and deepened in the context of real health-care problems in the next 2 applied analysis courses. These courses will allow you to focus on using real data and multivariate analyses to address current problems in the healthcare field.
This is the first in a 3-course series on applied statistics for health economics and clinical outcomes research. It will provide a detailed overview of descriptive statistics, and will also cover basic inferential statistics using univariate analysis methods. This course will introduce students to the concepts of multivariable and multivariate analysis procedures.
This course builds off of HECO 521 and is the second in a 3-course series on applied statistics for health economics and clinical outcomes research. This course will delve deeper into multivariate analysis as well as methods to analyze categorical data and non-normally distributed data. A strong emphasis on applied methods of data analysis using the SAS programming software will be present.
This course is the third in a 3-course series on applied statistics for health economics and clinical outcomes research. It will provide a survey of more advanced statistical methods with a focus on causal inference, i.e. methods designed to address research questions that concern the impact of some potential cause (e.g., a medical intervention, a change in treatment, economic conditions or policies) on some outcome (e.g., time to event, comorbidity, healthcare utilization and expenditures). Students will apply the skills learned in HECO 521 and 522 on a data-analysis project.
This course will introduce statistical programming for HECOR. Students will learn the basics of a common statistical language and how to conduct simple data programming. This course is designed to give students the universal tools all HECOR practitioners should know when performing statistics with large data sets common to HECOR.
This course will examine the application of economic principles to the allocation of scarce resources in health care; the use of economic theory to understand problems of organization, delivery and financing of health services; and the choices available to society regarding these issues. In this course, we will use methods from microeconomics to investigate how different aspects of the health care system function and to assess the implications for different policies designed to improve that functioning. We will use economic tools and techniques from the sub-disciplines of information economics, industrial organization, labor economics, public economics, behavioral economics and decision theory to think about these questions.
This course will focus on fundamental issues of health services in the United States and will provide a solid understanding of the overall structure and components of the system. The course will also allow students to interact with each other and to explore leading health services research and policies. The core course will not generally cover financial analysis, strategic planning, implementation, advocacy, coordination of health delivery or disaster contingency planning as these are covered elsewhere.
This course will examine the structure of health care systems in different countries, focusing on financing; organization of delivery systems; reimbursement of physicians, hospitals and pharmaceuticals and adoption of new technologies. Students will study the relative roles of private and public sector payers and providers and the effect of system design on cost, quality, efficiency and equity of medical services.
This course will introduce students to the basics of economic evaluations of health care interventions or technology. This value depends not only on how effective a treatment is, but also how costly it is. Economic evaluations provide a method for assimilating different costs and health outcomes associated with medical treatments into a common metric that allows one to assess that treatment’s worth in relation to other possible alternatives. By the end of this course, students should be familiar with the basic types of economic evaluations and should understand what issues should be addressed in performing a sound economic evaluation. Through examples and applications, students should also become familiar with how specific economic evaluations are performed and what are the major challenges and limitations of these approaches.
This course will introduce the development, methodological approach and application of quantitative models used to inform healthcare decisions. The course will emphasize decision trees and Markov models and introduce agent-based modeling techniques. Approaches to uncertainty in the model will be addressed through one-way, two-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses. The course will consider the application and presentation of the model to stakeholders with an emphasis on the ethical use and proper disclosure of the limitations inherent in the data and methods.
This course is the first in a 2-course series that integrates the specialized disciplines and knowledge learned from previous HECOR courses through the use of case analyses. Students will be challenged to identify the specific research question, methodologies to answer the question, conduct the analysis, and disseminate the results. This course will focus on the how to formulate an answerable research question, query the literature, search for evidence, develop the study design, assemble data and prepare a research proposal.
This course is the second in a 2-course series that integrates the specialized disciplines and knowledge learned from previous HECOR courses through the use of case analyses. Students will execute their research proposal prepared in HECO 692. The course will emphasize the dissemination of scientific research covering the principles of good scientific writing for publication and peer-review, and will culminate in the development of an abstract and oral presentation of their research.
HECOR Online Course Sequence:
- Intro to HECOR HECO 571
- Intro to Statistics for HECOR HECO 521
- Intro to Statistical Programming for HECOR HECO 601
- Applied Analysis for HECOR I HECO 522
- Health Ethics in Informatics & Research HECO 585
- Healthcare Services in the US HESA 571
- Intro to HECOR HECO 571
- Health Ethics in Informatics & Research HECO 585
- Healthcare Services in the US HESA 571
- Applied Analysis for HECOR II HECO 523
- Health Economics HECO 575
- Health Economics HECO 575
- Global Health Systems HECO 631
- Cost Benefit Analysis HECO 674
- Applied Epidemiology HECO 567
- Intro to Statistics for HECOR HECO 521
- Cost Benefit Analysis HECO 674
- Intro to Statistical Programming for HECOR HECO 601
- Economic Evaluation & Simulation Modeling HECO 675
- HECOR Capstone I HECO 692
- Applied Analysis for HECOR I HECO 522
- Economic Evaluation & Simulation Modeling HECO 675
- Global Health Systems HECO 631
- HECOR Capstone II HECO 693
- Applied Analysis for HECOR II HECO 523
- HECOR Capstone I HECO 692
- Applied Epidemiology HECO 567
- HECOR Capstone II HECO 693
*Please note that the recommended course sequence is provided for planning purposes only and is subject to change.
Applicants interested in applying to Xavier’s online HECOR program should submit the following:
Xavier University's free online application.
Official transcripts of completed coursework from accredited colleges and universities. Applicants must have an undergraduate degree from a regionally accredited university. Send to:
Xavier University
ATTN: Admission Processing Center
3800 Victory Parkway
Cincinnati, OH 45207-5131
For electronic transcripts, send to:
xugrad@xavier.edu
Current résumé of work experience.
Two letters of recommendation, preferably one from a current or former employer who can assess your potential for success in this program.
A 500-word, clear, concise and articulate Personal Letter of Intent. (Standard page margins of 1 inch, single-spaced, sans-serif font - Arial or Calibri recommended.)
Key points the personal letter of intent should address:
- What are your motivations for applying to Xavier’s HECOR program?
- How will the HECOR degree program at Xavier University help you to accomplish your objectives in career and life?
- HECOR is a quantitative, analytic and team project-oriented discipline. How are you prepared to be a successful graduate student in this program?
- Xavier’s mission is characterized by critical thinking to educate the whole person, with special attention to ethical issues and values. What does this mission mean to you?
Preferred (not required):
- 3 or more years of healthcare work experience.
- Grade of B or higher in any previous statistics or econometrics coursework.
- Grade of B or higher in previous microeconomics coursework.
- GRE or GMAT scores (sent directly from the testing agency) if GPA is less than 3.0.
International student requirements
Xavier welcomes students from outside the United States to enroll in its online programs. However, some countries do not formally recognize foreign online degrees. This may have implications for enrolling in subsequent degree programs or for securing employment requiring these credentials. It is students’ responsibility to determine whether the online degree will be recognized in their country of residence or in any country in which they plan to work. Additionally, students should inquire in their country of residence how the collection of student data may be used and whether they will be subject to additional withholding taxes in addition to the cost of tuition.
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- All international students are strongly encouraged to submit an official third-party course-by-course evaluation of their high school and/or college transcripts from an international credential evaluation service accredited by the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services.
- International students must pass either the TOEFL or IELTS exam if English is your second language.
- International students may have additional application requirements. Click here for more information.
Note: International students in the U.S. cannot enroll in an online degree program to fulfill the legal requirement for an F-1 or J-1 visa.
State Authorization
Xavier University is authorized to offer this fully-online program in most states. View the complete list of approved states on the State Authorization page.
Students enrolled in Xavier’s online master’s degree program in health economics and clinical outcomes research will learn from dedicated faculty and professionals currently working in the field of health economics, epidemiology, healthcare reimbursement and market access. Our exceptional faculty members include:
Director of Health Economics & Clinical Outcomes Research (HECOR) Program
Peter Mallow, Ph.D. the director of the HECOR Program and Assistant Professor at Xavier University. His research interests include understanding complex healthcare systems and how decisions are made with respect to uncertainty, value, efficiency and equity. His methodological expertise is in conducting economic evaluations and outcomes research to make explicit the tradeoffs involved in these complex decisions. He has earned several awards for his research and has been published in several leading health services journals. Prior to joining Xavier, Mallow served as the Program Director, Health Economics, Market Access and Outcomes Research for Cardinal Health and Associate Director of Health Economics at CTI Clinical Trial and Consulting. Mallow earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati where he served as an adjunct faculty member from 2015 to 2017.
Assistant Professor
Eileen Alexander, Ph.D. MS, BSN, RN is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Services Administration at Xavier University. She also serves as a Woodside Fellow in the Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology for Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Prior to these roles, she worked in the Department of Quality and Risk Management at Deaconess Hospital in Cincinnati. Alexander is licensed as an RN in the State of Ohio and has worked in nursing at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville, TN, and the Veterans Administration Hospital in Cincinnati. Alexander completed her Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Her research interests include human gene/microbiota/chemical interfaces; study design and analysis of epigenetically mediated disorders that differentially affect males/females and adults/children; education, retention and leadership development for minorities in STEM disciplines; and public health promotion.
Principal, One Tall Tree Consulting
Eric Bell, MBA is a Principal of One Tall Tree Consulting. He has worked in the pharmaceutical and medical devices field for over fifteen years, developing numerous decision-support tools such as budget impact and cost-effectiveness models, using a variety of techniques including decision trees, Markov modeling and Monte Carlo simulations. Fluent in numerous programming languages, he has more than thirty years of experience writing software in a variety of contexts, including avionics, text editing, device drivers, stock market trading, workflow management, databases and database-driven web applications. Eric has an undergraduate degree in mathematics, graduate study in computer science and an MBA.
Clinical Performance Analyst
Jessica Curran, MSc. is a Clinical Performance Analyst at Banner Health. She is responsible for proposing, study design, analysis, and dissemination of clinical process and outcomes measure for a variety of clinical practice areas across a large integrated delivery network. Prior to joining Banner Health, Curran worked at Cerner Corporation and WebMD. She earned her Master of Science in Statistics from the University of Virginia where she also served as a biostatistics lecturer from 2014 to 2016.
Assistant Professor
Stephanie Donauer, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Services Administration at Xavier University. From 2013-2016, she held a National Research Service Award General Pediatric Research Fellowship at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Prior to that, she served as a Biostatistician and Epidemiologist at Cincinnati Children’s, where she designed, conducted, analyzed and published medical research studies. Donauer earned her Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of Cincinnati. In 2014, she was awarded a University of Cincinnati Center for Environmental Genetics Career Development Award to study environmental toxicants during pregnancy and the subsequent vaccine response in offspring. Her research focuses on the effects of prenatal exposure to environmental toxins and the effectiveness of the Rotavirus vaccine.
Senior Director, Health Economics & Market Access
Diane Francis, MPH is Senior Director, Health Economics & Market Access for Ethicon US, LLC, a Johnson & Johnson Company. She has worked in various roles related to health economics and reimbursement for Johnson & Johnson since 2000. Prior to 2000, Francis served in administrative roles with hospital systems, including as Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer for Health Care Network of New Jersey, LLC, and as Primary Care Network Coordinator for The Brooklyn Hospital Center. Francis received her Master of Public Health in Health Policy and Management from Columbia University’s School of Public Health. Francis has been recognized through several awards, including a Johnson & Johnson Innovation Award in 2014; Johnson & Johnson Standards of Leadership Award in 2008, 2010 and 2015; and Trinitas Regional Hospital Center Humanitarian Award in 2010. Her recent publications and presentations focus on analyzing data associated with bariatric surgery outcomes.
Vice President of Health Economics and Outcomes Research
Candace Gunnarsson, Ed.D. is Vice President of Health Economics and Outcomes Research at CTI Clinical Trial and Consulting Services. In addition to leading the HECOR team and consultants, Gunnarsson actively participates as a Principal Investigator and works closely with the Executive Director of Consulting Management to staff HECOR projects in the areas of scientific and regulatory affairs, project management and biometrics. Gunnarsson played an essential role in developing and launching the new Master of Science program in Health Economic and Clinical Outcomes Research (HECOR) at Xavier University. She has considerable expertise with large-scale databases, such as electronic medical records, commercial payer, hospital, pharmacy, government and physician databases. Gunnarsson received her Doctorate with Data Sciences Certification from the University of Cincinnati. Her research has appeared in leading health services and medical journals. She has authored a vast portfolio of publications and presentations and has received numerous industry and teaching awards throughout her career.
Vice President of Health Outcomes and Biostatistics
William Irish, Ph.D., Vice President of Health Outcomes and Biostatistics at CTI Clinical Trial and Consulting Services (CTI) and adjunct assistant consulting professor in transplantation surgery for Duke University in Durham, NC, is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of study design and analysis. He has been a resource in transplantation for more than twenty years, beginning as a faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh and continuing throughout his career in various biotechnology and pharmaceutical areas. Dr. Irish specializes in outcomes research, statistical modeling and prediction, risk assessment, risk analysis, clinical trial methodology and large-scale database and claims analysis.
Principal Clinical Research Scientist
Paul Niklewski, Ph.D. is Principal Clinical Research Scientist for Ethicon Inc., a Johnson and Johnson Company. In addition to teaching in the HECOR program at Xavier, he is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology & Cell Biophysics at University of Cincinnati’s College of Medicine. Niklewski has approximately 20 years of industry experience, both in medical devices and pharmaceuticals. During his career, he has worked on both the design of medical products and outcomes in the health industry. He has developed a comprehensive understanding of both the clinical and economic needs over his career for companies, hospitals and payers. This includes understanding the current changes in health care driven by the affordable care act and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Niklewski completed his Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Recent publications focus on patient safety during procedural sedation. He has been recognized with the Johnson and Johnson Standard of Leadership Award in 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2013.
Chief Clinical Officer
Stephen Roller, DHA, APRN, FNP-C, CENP is Chief Clinical Officer for Primary Health Solutions, a Federally Qualified Health Center providing care to medically underserved populations in Southwest Ohio. Prior to joining Primary Health Solutions, Roller served in nurse, nurse practitioner and nursing management positions for eight years. He is Certified in Executive Nursing Practice, as well as an Advanced Practiced Registered Nurse, as a Family Nurse Practitioner and as a Basic Life Support Healthcare Provider. Roller earned his Doctorate in Healthcare Administration and Leadership from the Medical University of South Carolina and his MSN-FNP and BSN from The Ohio State University.
Health GIS Research Specialist
Michael Topmiller, Ph.D. is a Health GIS Research Specialist at HealthLandscape, a division of the American Academy of Family Physicians. He serves a variety of roles at HealthLandscape, including leading multiple geospatial and population health research projects, developing prototypes and configuring web-based mapping tools, and providing support and webinar training for HealthLandscape’s suite of online data visualization tools. In addition, Michael is a fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Interdisciplinary Research Leaders program, where he is working on a community-based participatory research project focused on early childhood wellness in two Cincinnati neighborhoods. Michael’s educational background includes undergraduate degrees in mathematics and secondary education from the University of Kentucky, an MA in Latin American Studies from San Diego State University and a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Cincinnati.