Healthcare Policy, Regulation, and Ethics

What Will You Learn?

• Healthcare Policy Frameworks
• Understand how healthcare systems are organized and governed by different levels of government (national and sub-national).
• Explore the policy cycle—from problem identification to policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation.
• Learn how key actors (e.g., ministries of health, legislatures, and regulatory bodies) influence healthcare access, cost, and quality.
• Government Roles and Health System Regulation
• Examine how governments finance, regulate, and deliver healthcare services.
• Review real-world models such as the U.S. Affordable Care Act and the UK’s NHS governance system.
• Regulatory Bodies and Institutional Oversight
• Study the roles of key national and international health regulatory authorities like the FDA (USA), EMA (EU), and WHO.
• Understand how these agencies ensure the safety, efficacy, and quality of drugs, devices, and services.
• Ethical Considerations in Health Economics
• Learn core ethical principles—autonomy, justice, beneficence, and non-maleficence—and how they apply to health policy.
• Explore real-world ethical dilemmas, such as ICU bed allocation during pandemics or pricing of rare disease medications.
• Integrity and Transparency in Health Decision-Making
• Understand how accountability and transparency help maintain public trust in healthcare systems.
• Analyze how conflicts of interest, lobbying, and lack of openness can compromise fair decision-making.
• Responsible Use of Economic Evaluations
• Learn how ethical values shape the design and interpretation of cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analyses.
• Explore how equity and fairness are integrated into resource allocation and healthcare prioritization.