Health Care Strategy
4-6 hours per week • Starting Oct 29, 2025
Individual Course
Course Length
5 weeks
4–5 hours per week
Featuring faculty from:
Harvard Medical School
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Certificate Price:
$ 950
Apply by Oct 27, 2025
Apply NowCertificate Price:
$ 950
Apply by Oct 27, 2025
Apply NowIn partnership with the Disparities Solutions Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, this course will help you deliver high-quality health care to all through organizational change.
What is inequality in health care? What does social justice in health care look like? Does your organization address racial equity and access to care? Is diversity, bias, and inclusion a common conversation or evaluation to improve delivery? How do you address these topics with your leadership and board members?
Racial disparity in the United States health care industry isn’t a new topic; for decades researchers have focused on quality of care, access, and safety of people of color versus their white counterparts. While in recent years quality and access has improved in the U.S. thanks to initiatives like the Affordable Care Act, there is still a gap in the quality of care different groups receive. It’s vital to continue closing the biases and disparities in health care through education, communication, and action.
In Reducing Racial Disparities in Health Care, you will not only examine the disparities that exist when serving a diverse population, but also approach each inequity head-on to learn more about the causes and how to eliminate these issues. By focusing on data collection and performance measurements unique to your organization, you will identify how core issues in care quality of ethnic and racial minority groups, which are often multifactorial in nature, contribute to poorer health outcomes, lead to higher costs, and exemplify low-value health care.
Self-Guided
HBS Online
Industries:
Identify the causes of systemic racism in health care that are grounded in historical instances of segregation to better understand why health equity is important
Learn how to collect and analyze data unique to underserved populations to inform organizational change
Create a vision to obtain stakeholder buy-in and a strategic framework to implement solutions leading to high-value equitable health care
Reducing Racial Disparities in Health Care is a health equity course introduces strategies that advance policy and practice to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care. The course begins with understanding our history (Module 1), followed by learning about the foundations of this type of work (Modules 2 through 4), and ending with an examination of emerging topics (Module 5). Online Course requirements: There are no prerequisites needed to take this online course. In order to earn a Certificate of Completion from Harvard Online, participants must thoughtfully complete all 5 modules, including satisfactory completion of the associated quizzes, by stated deadlines.
Your Instructor
Director of the Disparities Solutions Center and the Director of Equity in Care Implementation at Massachusetts General Hospital
Aswita Tan-McGrory, MBA, MSPH (she/her/hers) is the Director of the Disparities Solutions Center and the Director of Equity in Care Implementation at Massachusetts General Hospital. At the Disparities Solutions Center she leads the mission to address racial and ethnic disparities in health care and oversees the Disparities Leadership Program. As Director of Equity in Care Implementation she provides leadership for assuring equity in access to, and delivery of clinical care, specifically related to the “Doorstep to Bedside” approach of assessing the care delivery continuum at Massachusetts General Hospital. Ms. Tan-McGrory is a subject matter expert and public speaker, and travels across the country to speak to organizations about how race, ethnicity, and language impact the quality of care.
Your Instructor
Joseph Betancourt , MD, MPH (he/him/his), is the newly appointed President of the Commonwealth Fund, becoming one of the first Latino heads of a national health care foundation. He previously served as Senior Vice President, Equity and Community Health at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). He was the founder of the Disparities Solutions Center (DSC) at MGH, Faculty at the Mongan Institute, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and he continues as a practicing Internal Medicine physician. He is the current chair of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee of the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association and sits in its Board of Trustees. He was inaugural incumbent of the Sumner M. Redstone Endowed Chair in Health Equity. Dr. Betancourt is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in health policy, health care disparities, diversity, and cross-cultural medicine.
Industry Expert
Mitchell Kellaway is the Program Manager for Data Accuracy within the Health Equity team of the Mass General Brigham (MGB) Office of the Chief Medical Officer. His work will help illuminate best practices for measuring, monitoring, and reporting on race, ethnicity, and language preferences (REaL) data.
Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.
Industry Expert
Dr. Alvin Powell is the Vice President of Clinical Care, Health Equity at Cone Health in North Carolina. His case study will help you understand how structural racism and discrimination (SRD) has shaped the health care system and what organizations can do to acknowledge past harms.
Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.
Industry Expert
Dr. Altaf Saadi is the Associate Director at the Mass General Asylum Clinic and Principal Investigator for the Neurodisparities and Health Justice Lab at MGH. She will help you look ahead to emerging topics in health care disparity and prepare your organization to better serve immigrant populations.
Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.
Health Care Leadership courses are developed with health care professionals in mind. Harvard University faculty guides you through topics with a specific focus on the current state of the US health care system and how you can apply innovative strategies to make improvements within your organization.
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Upskill your team
Engaging learning experiences and high-quality online content that can be delivered at scale
Solutions that focus on today’s in-demand skill areas to help attract, retain and future-proof your workforce
A variety of formats, from long-form courses that replicate an on-campus classroom experience to short-form content
Interaction with a global community of learners and leaders looking to develop their workforce, grow their business, and change the world
Learners who have enrolled in at least one qualifying Harvard Online program can receive a 30% discount, automatically applied to the Program Fee upon time of payment.
Learners who have earned a verified certificate for a HarvardX course hosted on the edX platform are eligible to receive a 30% discount using a discount code. Please check your email for a code or contact us.
Eligibility is determined by a prospective learner’s email address, ending in .org, .gov, .mil, or .edu. Interested learners can apply below for the discount and, if eligible, will receive a promo code to enter when completing payment information to enroll in a Harvard Online program.
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