The costs of the Swiss healthcare system have mounted to 12 percent of GDP - and they continue to grow. This is precisely why the healthcare system is constantly in the mid of the political debate. Rising premiums and costs tend to call for increasing and far-reaching regulations. The special character of the good “health” leads to a political ban or restriction of a price mechanism as a mean to allocate resources, a mechanism that is successfully applied in most other markets. The challenge for health economics is to reconcile the ethical concerns of society as closely as possible with the respective market conditions.

This specialisation is subdivided into three topics: In addition to the fundamental analysis of health goods, hospitals and physician behaviour, it deepens the view on the insurance market and the pharmaceutical industry and their associated, specific regulation. A comprehensive understanding of different insurance solutions and an in-depth examination of the topics of risk analysis and risk management enable students to perform complex tasks for the insurance industry. With its home market of five billion Swiss francs and its export volume of over 70 billion Swiss francs (one third of all Swiss exports), the pharmaceutical industry represents one of Switzerland's most important industries. Its market form is dynamic and complex, while its products such as life-prolonging pharmaceuticals are particularly important.

The Master's programme "Health Economics and Management" is unique in Switzerland. The University of Lucerne offers this specialisation exclusively.

Topics and example courses

Health Economics

• Health Economics
• Applied Health Economics
• Economic Evaluation in Health Care

Insurance Economics and Risk Management

• Versicherungsökonomie

• Einführung in die Versicherungsforschung

• International Comparison of Health Care Systems

Pharmaceutical Economics and Management of Health Providers

• Topics in Pharmaceutical Economics
• Hospital Management
• Effizienz von Krankenhäusern

Career prospects

It goes without saying that the successful completion of this specialisation opens doors to a wide variety of tasks in various fields of health care. This includes hospital management, organising and managing a network of outpatient medical practices, practical risk management in health insurance, management of pharmaceutical companies that are constantly reinventing themselves, but also tasks as collaborator of the monitoring authorities of this market.