Health Informatics Concentration

This course examines the history of data science, its status as a scientific and applied discipline in a modern-day world, and surveys all the important topics covered in the courses in the program and many of their applications to everyday life. Part of the course will also serve as review of mathematics and basic programming knowledge.

ADS522 and ADS533 cover the foundation of statistical analysis of data. While necessary concepts and theory are covered, emphasis is put on the analysis of real-world data. Topics include exploratory data analysis—organizing, displaying and describing data, summarizing data, discrete and continuous distributions, data sampling and hypothesis testing.

Continuing from ADS522, ADS523 covers essential topics in statistics including inference for population statistics from random samples, ANOVA, categorical data analysis, design of experiments and simulation methods such as Bootstrap and permutation test, and an introduction to regression.

This course is an introduction to data visualization. It includes data pre-processing and focuses on specific tools and techniques necessary to visualize complex data. Data visualization topics covered include design principles, perception, color, statistical graphs, maps, trees and networks, data visualization tools, and other topics as appropriate. Visualization tools may include Tableau, Python, and R, etc. The course introduces the techniques necessary to successfully implement visualization projects using the programming languages studied.

This course focuses on the communication and use of financial information for the purpose of making sound economic decisions. Students learn to read and analyze financial information as presented in a firms annual report and SEC 10K with a concentration on Financial Statements, Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Statement of Cash Flow. Financial analysis techniques are used to interpret this information and evaluate the performance and financial health of a business. Students will examine the financial decision-making processes to determine capital budget project selection and capital budget financing. This course emphasizes analysis, real-world application, and communication.

This course discusses ways for healthcare management personnel to provide service in a competitive marketplace. Students will analyze theories, methods, and techniques with regard to strategy, staffing, and systems. Topics discussed will include areas such as building a customer service culture; training, motivating, and empowering staff; measuring service quality; managing service waits; and recovering from a service failure.

This course addresses the legal issues that are most prevalent in the delivery of healthcare. Emphasis will be on the common issues that healthcare professionals encounter. The student will be introduced to various legal terms, policy and statutes and their relationship to the healthcare system process. Additionally the student will be provided with foundational knowledge regarding healthcare law and ethics and the effect on healthcare policy.

This course provides information on the importance and process of strategic planning in response to the rapid transformation in healthcare delivery. Students will examine and formulate strategies to assist in analyzing their organizational factors critical to strategic planning in order to achieve the organization’s mission.

This course will explore organizational theory and behavior within the context of the health care environment. Health care organizations are ultimately driven by a mission of care and service, have a distinct culture and approach to meeting the complex and ever-changing needs of the healthcare consumer. Content will examine the culture of health care and how it impacts the way in which health care organizations and the people who work within health care interrelate. Health care organizations will be viewed from the system, organizational, group, and individual levels. Students will focus on the practical applications of theories and concepts of behavior within health care organizations.

This course discusses the complex organizational dynamics and structures that dictate the interactions among the major components of the US. Healthcare System. The course will also investigate best practices and information related to providing excellence in service.

As a member of a Six Sigma project team, students will learn how to lead and executive process-level improvement projects. They will develop process flow charts, collect and analyze data, develop hypotheses, and use basic statistical tools to determine optimum ways to reduce cost, improve processes and increase customer/client satisfaction. Where applicable, students will design simple experiments to validate theories. This hands-on class will focus on projects to eliminate waste and defects by applying lean and Six Sigma methodology. In-class case studies will focus on Healthcare issues.

To remain competitive, organizations must continuously seek new ways to be efficient and effective in their work processes. The tools and techniques taught in this course can be applied to any type of organization including: for-profit organization, nonprofit organization or government agency. In this course, students will learn the following continuous improvement tools: Cause and Effect Diagrams, Flow Charts, Checklists, Pareto Charts, SWOT Analysis, Brainstorming Techniques, the 5 Ys, Root Cause Analysis, and Corrective Action Techniques.

The objective of this course is to provide an understanding of the importance of integrating change management and project management activities. Typically, the study of project management focuses on the tasks and activities needed to accomplish a project: who, what, when and how. It provides project structure and addresses the actions, deliverables and outcomes. However, change management focuses on the people impacted by the change and ways to reduce resistance to change and to elicit behaviors to support change. Although change management is critical to the success of any change intuitive, it is often forgotten and not integrated into project management theory. This course stresses the importance of addressing the “people” aspect of a change project.

This course will provide an overview of the key factors affecting the economic and financial management of healthcare organizations in today’s environment and provide the knowledge necessary for health service managers to apply financial management theory and principles to help make decisions to promote the financial well-being of the organization.

This course introduces data management and database technologies, including relational database systems and the structured query language (SQL). In addition, data warehousing and more analytic databases also are introduced, along with online analytic processing (OLAP) tolls to support decision making. Data quality issues, emerging cloud databases and other special topics will round out the coverage. Finally, the course offers a brief introduction to data mining techniques.

This course is an introduction to regulatory policies, based on Federal and State Health laws including; Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), Meaningful Use and Medicare/Medicaid which influence the design and security requirements for an Electronic Health Record (EHR). This course examines ethical principles related to the development, implementation and usage of EHRs such as; patient autonomy, beneficence/ non-maleficence, privacy, confidentiality and justice. Case studies presenting unauthorized disclosure of protected health information will be discussed. Risk analysis, data breach analysis and notification requirements will conclude the course.

This course discusses the system analysis lifecycle; planning, analysis, design, implementation and evaluation of healthcare software. Database technologies, programming languages (SQL, Java) and how they are used to structure the software will be explored. Development of network principles, design methods as well as system integration tools to exchange data in a secure manner are reviewed. Key concepts of business continuity, technical security, data mining, maintenance, virtual network and disaster recovery will complete the course.

This course provides students with an understanding of how health informatics systems are implemented and used by clinicians to improve the quality and safety of patient centered care. Methods of how HIM Systems are used to exchange data between a variety of Healthcare organizations will be reviewed. Students will learn about Health Information Exchange (HIE), Population Health, disease mapping, analytics and healthcare trends.

This course defines security and risk management principles using the context of a wireless network computer environment. Students will have the opportunity through case studies and guest speakers to investigate more fully issues such as how security threats are handled for computer operating systems and network environments by considering security regulations, cryptography, and business practices for electronic commerce.

This course focuses on the collection, organization, analysis, and dissemination of information in Nursing and health care. Students explore nursing informatics, the information system life-cycle, telemedicine, and the use of technology to enhance nursing care delivery and patient safety. Students learn how to design, use, and manipulate large and small patient databases for the analysis of patient outcomes.