Curriculum: Master of Health Informatics - MHI

This course focuses on U.S. healthcare and public health topics such as healthcare delivery, public health services, performance, organization, financing and technology. Key emerging global health topics are taught. The course introduces key public policy impacting health and healthcare, such as policy advocating for patient-centered care, efficiency, quality and safety. The course introduces the role of health information technology and electronic health information sharing. This course also introduces and compares key healthcare quality initiatives.

This course introduces the discipline of health informatics and covers emerging trends. Various information systems, technologies and applications utilized in the context of health and health care are introduced. Their characteristics, strengths, challenges, purpose and impact are taught. Impact on patients, populations and health care providers is emphasized. Factors influencing adoption and use of various clinical and health information systems and technologies are taught. Key information technologies and systems such as electronic health records, health information exchanges, personal health records, public health information systems and mobile health technologies are introduced in this course. Topics such as telemedicine, interoperability and technical concepts are taught and evaluation framework is applied.

Students are introduced to various electronic health information standards such as vocabulary, terminology and messaging standards. Students apply knowledge discovery and extraction techniques such as natural language processing and text mining for health and health care scenarios. This course introduces standards for health and health care data communication, storage and representation, emphasizing new paradigms.

This course introduces legislation relevant to electronic health information privacy and information security. Topics such as electronic health information privacy and security safeguards, risk assessment methodology and contingency planning are taught. Students learn how to mitigate risk to business continuity and plan for disaster recovery.

The simple objective of healthcare is to provide medical services beneficial to patients, yet the complexity of modern day healthcare delivery exceeds that simple objective. The influences of patient needs, regulatory demands, variation in provider practice, as well as, social, psychological, political, financial, and technical factors contribute to this complexity. In this course, we will discuss the influences that shape modern healthcare, including socio-technical models, cognitive behavioral models, and the findings of workflow studies. Students will be introduced to workflow processes, what influenced the development of  those processes, and the concept of workflow re-engineering in the context of health information systems. They will gain hands-on experience depicting the processes using modeling notation. Students will also gain knowledge about the information software development process, as well as designing and evaluating a needed user-centered health informatics solution. Throughout the course, students will consider and apply principles and methods drawn from human factor and usability engineering, and, socio-technical and behavior sciences.

This course applies project and program management knowledge and frameworks to health and health care scenarios specifically focusing on health information technology projects and programs. The course focuses mostly on project management but introduces key knowledge and frameworks utilized by program managers. Topics such as professional communication, team building, project integration management, project risk management, project time management and project quality management are covered. Students can learn the characteristics of a successful project and program. Advanced principles of project scheduling and control are taught. This course is aligned to Project Management Institute standards.

Students learn theories and best practices of leadership, understanding how to manage people and change in the context of health information technology implementation and use. Strategic management practices are covered in this course. Students are introduced to financial management and contract and vendor management. Students also learn best practices for managing the information technology consulting experience.

This course teaches students principles of data modeling and database design. Students gain hands-on experience data modeling, designing and developing a database for a health scenario. Students gain experience with a querying language such as structured query language (SQL).

Introduction to data analysis and statistical methods with focus on practical decisions using quantitative models in a spreadsheet environment. Topics include sources of data, descriptive and graphical statistical methods, probability, distributions, sampling and sampling distributions, estimation, confidence intervals, and hypothesis testing.

This course teaches the use of health and healthcare data to make decisions and transform healthcare delivery and the health of individuals and populations. The course concentrates on big and small data, and structured and unstructured data. Tools, applications and approaches for health data analytics are taught. This course covers topics such as statistical approaches; data, web and text mining; data visualization, simulation, modeling and forecasting.  Key regulatory health and healthcare reporting requirements are taught.

This course introduces the student to data science in healthcare. The course addresses both advanced database and introductory statistics and data science programming as essential skills in data science. Students increase their database and data science skills through the use of the programming language and advanced database-related assignments. Concepts such as data exploration, transformation and visualization are taught, along with how to address missing data and outliers, and how to conduct tests of assumptions and hypothesis testing. This course assumes that students have completed an introductory database course.

This course will introduce students to a variety of cutting-edge analytics and business intelligence tools applicable to health or healthcare data. Both structured and unstructured data will be introduced in this course. The course will also address topics related to data governance and data quality and various other topics relevant to health data management. This course is predominately hands-on and students will complete a project to demonstrate skills acquired. Students will learn how other industries have applied similar or the same tools.

In collaboration with the course instructor and a preceptor, students design an experience to facilitate the application of health informatics principles, techniques, tools and theories. Emphasis is on activities related to the project objectives that contribute to meeting program objectives. Students are challenged to select health informatics projects that are beneficial to the healthcare industry and that generate meaningful tangible deliverables, and to advance their leadership skills. Students complete an approved project during the duration of the practicum course