MSPharm Courses
The MSPharm Advanced Level Courses
Master of Science in Pharmacy Online Degree – University of Florida
The following advanced level courses from the UF College of Pharmacy are required as part of the
tandem MSPharm/MBA online degree program:
PHA6286 Pharmaceutical Microeconomics
This course will introduce students to basic microeconomic principles as they are applied to pharmaceuticals. Elucidation of the basic concepts of choice, opportunity costs, supply and demand, elasticity, utility maximizing behavior, competition, monopolies and oligopolies in the healthcare market will engage students and provide the foundation for success in the program.
PHA6987 Pharmaceutical Health Economics
This course will build on Pharmaceutical Microeconomics by delving into the economic principles and issues of health care in the US. Topics such as health care structure and financing, market failures, human capital, and producer and consumer behavior will round out the students’ understanding of the economics of our health care system.
PHA6935 Commercial Applications of Pharmacoeconomic Principles
This course will also build on Pharmaceutical Microeconomics by investigating the theory, methods, and application of technology assessment in health care. It covers basic methods used to structure a technology assessment study, measure and summarize health outcomes, estimate their value to patients or the public, identify the resources used, estimate cost of health resources, and construct and test mathematical models to make population and/or temporal predictions of outcomes and costs from limited data. Applications will be drawn from a variety of health care settings and will include the evaluation of pharmaceuticals.
PHA6276 Regulating Pharmaceutical Access & Cost
This course explores regulation intended to expand access to and control the costs of health care. Students are exposed to a variety of concepts including: the obligation to provide care; state and federal regulation of private health insurance and managed care; the implications of EMTALA, ERISA, HIPAA, and COBRA; Medicare and Medicaid; technology assessment; and drug pricing and controls.
PHA6277 Ethics in Drug Production, Distribution & Use
This is an introduction to biomedical ethics primarily as applied to pharmaceutical and medical device products. Subject areas include the provider-patient relationship, clinical research ethics, distribution of scarce resources, ethics and industry, and beginning and end of life issues. Topics of special interest are tissue engineering and stem cells, human cloning, xenotransplantation, defining diseases, genetic testing, and genomically customized medications.
PHA6269 Pharmaceutical Products & Public Policy
In this course, students are challenged to consider the broader context of the research activities in which they will engage. Channels of distribution for pharmaceutical and medical device products are reviewed. The importance of intellectual property protection is discussed. The concept of comparative effectiveness is introduced. Pharmaceutical industry promotional practices, and the effect of them on research and clinical care, are examined. The global implications of domestic pharmaceutical policies are considered.
PHA6252 Pharmacy Health Care Systems
This course will explore the structure and management of different mechanisms for organizing and delivering health care in the US. Students will develop an understanding of the implicit and explicit incentives for providers, patients, and payers in each system, and the impact of these incentives on the clinical, economic, and humanistic outcomes produced by the healthcare system.
PHA6935 Introduction to Pharmacoepidemiology
This course will expose students to the traditional techniques used in descriptive and analytic epidemiology to describe and measure the negative impact of medication use. Students will learn how to use pharmacoepidemiology concepts, such as pharmacovigilance, to minimize patients’ risk exposure.
