Frequantly Asked Questions

Health System Science (HSS) is a three year course in the Bachelor Of Health System Sciences Degree programme at the University of the Witwatersrand. Health System Science can be defined as the practice of understanding healthcare delivery, teamwork between various healthcare professionals and identifying areas of health care system that positively corollate with an improvement in patient care and health care delivery (Bartoletta and Starr, 2021). Healthcare delivery has become more complex however the medical education provided to medical students has not been updated to keep up with the complexity (Sawyer et al., 2020). The HSS framework in medical schools stems from the problem of unreconcilable differences clinical practice and medical education (Bartoletta and Starr, 2021). Thus, HSS was created as a solution to the mismatch between the disparities patient experience when accessing healthcare services and the education medical professionals receive (Bartoletta and Starr, 2021). HSS centres around healthcare systems and has been designed to complement basic and clinical sciences (Sawyer et al., 2020). 

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The focal point of HSS are the patient, family, and community.  According to Bartoletta and Starr (2021), “The inner circle includes the core functional domains of HSS: health care structures and processes; health system improvement; value in health care; population health, public health, and social determinants of health; clinical informatics and health technology; and health care policy and economics. The middle circle represents the foundational domains that relate to more than 1 core domain: leadership; teaming; change agency, management, and advocacy; and ethics and legal. The linking domain for all other domains is systems thinking.”

To have a complete and through understanding of patient care, health care systems, ad challenges in health care systems thinking is important. “Systems thinking depicts the importance of not solely considering each domain in a silo but instead recognizing cause-and-effect relationships and the dynamic integration of each domain to positively affect health care. With this framework, providers can use tools and skills as well as a unique perspective to change and improve the system.” (Bartoletta and Starr, 2021)

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According to Smith (2020) the HSS domain can be understood as:

• Health care structure and process:                                                                                    Understanding how persons, organisations, resources, and procedures are structured in health care delivery.

• Health care policy and economics: 
  Identifying and comprehending community-level strategies, decisions, and programmes for health and problems which affect delivery and utilisation of healthcare.    ​

• Clinical informatics and health technology:
  Information to support clinical initiatives and decisions and how health data is collected, stored, and utilised.     

• Population, public and social determinants of health:
  Encompasses macro-level strategies which are aimed at discrepancies in healthcare access and delivery.    

• Value in health care:
  “which is defined as quality of care divided by its cost over time.”     

• Health system improvement:
  procedures which recognise, evaluate, examine, and employ changes to healthcare services to improve the healthcare system.    

• Leadership:
  “which involves motivating others to pursue a common goal.”    

• Teaming:
  The ability to collaborate on specified tasks to achieve an objective.      

• Change agency, management and advocacy:
  Understanding the role of healthcare professional advocating for the improvement in the healthcare services that patient receive and for the continuous development and improvement of health systems.    

• Ethics and legal:                                                                                                                           “including the ways in which the transition from a one-on-one patient-physician dynamic to a systems approach presents challenges for health law and ethics.” 

This portfolio is a cumulative record of my learning and the development of my professional practice throughout my participation in the HSS course.  In this portfolio there is a collection of scholarly and professional work that shows my values, abilities, education, training, and experiences. It reveals my character and work attitude. (Clarke University, 2016)

This portfolio mainly consists  evidence of my engagement with the work taught in HSS .  As you navigate through my portfolio there will be evidence of how I have grown in many different aspects as a HSS student, through this platform I hope to illustrate the values, knowledge, and competencies of HSS as well as my journey to becoming a competent Health System scientist.

Please refer to Portfolio Organisation for description, of visual aid.