Health Informatics for Healthcare Professionals

Overview

This course is best suited for individuals currently in the healthcare sector, as a provider, payer, or administrator. Individuals pursuing a career change to the healthcare sector may also be interested in this course. In this course, you will have an opportunity to explore concepts and topics related to the design and management of health information systems. After an introduction to the history and current status of information systems in healthcare, you will then explore the areas of information architecture, administrative and clinical applications, information retrieval, decision support systems, the electronic health record, key health information systems and standards. Throughout this course, you will be given the opportunity to evaluate your understanding through engagement in course discussions, application of course concepts to a course assignment, and through completion of content quizzes along the way.

Syllabus

Health IT Enters a New Era

Technology has transformed the healthcare landscape in so many ways. From the origins of the patient record to the development of cloud computing technologies, to wearables and artificial intelligence, the purpose of data collection has evolved. In this module, we will explore the history of cloud computing and data science. As health information systems change, so does the need for more specialized health IT leadership roles within organizations. You will examine these different roles and unique responsibilities each has in the organization’s development and strategic planning process. By the end of this module, you will have a firm understanding of the history of health informatics and how these technologies have shape the healthcare landscape of the future.

Data Standards in Healthcare

As data collection in healthcare continued to grow and expand beyond simple storage and retrieval of basic information, the need for standardization across the healthcare industry became imperative. In this module, you will explore the three main types of data standards and the types of data vocabularies that are used throughout the healthcare ecosystem.

Data Sharing and Storage in Healthcare

In this module you will continue to learn about data standards, shifting focus to follow the various standardization initiatives such as FHIR and DICOM and how these initiatives were able to transform how healthcare data is presently stored. You will also reflect upon the relationship between standards, data storage modalities, and natural language processing and how the three can be used to develop models for the future that will help organizations provide better patient care.

Reinventing Clinical Decision Support Systems

In this module, you will dive further into exploring health information systems, now focusing on clinical decision support (CDS) systems. These systems can provide value to clinicians, increasing productivity and supporting clinical processes. With incorporation of these systems, can also bring challenges and complexities. In this module you will explore the benefits and challenges of integrating CDS systems in the healthcare organization. Then you will compare different approaches to storing and controlling data collections. Finally, you will be introduced to the idea of a global algorithm registry and what it could mean for the future of information systems.