Curriculum

Ready to lead the digital evolution of healthcare.

The Master of Science in Health Informatics and Analytics program (MSHIA) allows information systems professionals, physicians, nurses, other clinical personnel, and healthcare managers to increase their knowledge of health information technology, artificial intelligence in healthcare, and the management of complex social and organizational issues surrounding the increased emphasis on managing healthcare quality, efficiency, and outcomes through information systems.

Our innovative curriculum integrates the domains of information systems, such as data analytics, with the organizational domains of healthcare, including, the legal and policy environment, delivery processes, as well as leadership and management principles. The program educates effective developers, users, and managers of health information systems. Students explore the design and use of health information systems needed by hospital and system executives, government planners, public health officials, and other healthcare professionals. Courses have both an academic and practical perspective, exposing students to both theoretical approaches and real-world applications.

Required Core Courses (28 credits)

All Students complete 10 required core courses for completion of the MSHIA degree requirements.

• HIM 6267 Foundations of Health and Analytics Administration

  *1 credit course

  Addresses foundational knowledge and skills needed to successfully contribute to and advance in the healthcare informatics and analytics community including a) the landscape of health, healthcare, health informatics, and the healthcare industry, b) the basics of collaborative interdisciplinary administrative/managerial process in a healthcare environment, c) core skills to prepare health IT related reports and worksheets that are evidence-based, showcase key quantitative data and qualitative information, and are understood by various stakeholders, and d) roles for the aspiring health IT professional.

• HIM 5065 Introduction to Health & Health Informatics

  Introduces students to the concepts of health, the organization and delivery of health services, and the role and impact of health informatics and health systems in health care. The population and medical models of health, the concepts of population health and population health management, and the role of policy, financing, and quality initiatives are explored in the context of stakeholder analysis. Review of metrics, measures, and public sources of data underscores the evaluation and application of Health IT, data analytics, and health informatics to improving health and healthcare delivery.

• HIM 6685 Clinical Information Systems

  Introduces students to information systems in health care, its use, and applications in clinical practice and research. Explores many facets of HIT used in a clinical context by examining the challenges for information collection, use, and application in healthcare settings. Incorporates topics including, electronic health records, clinical decision support systems, privacy, telemedicine, health information exchange, and personal health records, their associated terminology, and factors for successful implementation in clinical settings. Students learn the potential value of these systems to care delivery and quality, and considerations related to return on investment. It explores aspects of system design and selection, deploying and maintaining these systems (costs, adoption, value proposition, integration into workflow, feasibility, and training).

  Software: Electronic Medical Record (EMR) System Software

• HIM 6865 Healthcare Database Systems

  Helps students critically think, conceptualize, and model databases and use query languages to manipulate databases to obtain information to help make decisions. The course takes a transaction-based (OLTP) data-oriented view embedded in the larger processing view. Students complete reading assignments, problem-solving exercises, and case exercises. Students extend their learning to new domains and applications to communicate their database knowledge.

  Software: SQL, Visio, Lucidchart, Access, Neo4j, Tera

• HIM 6124 Technical and Data Architectures and Standards for Healthcare

  Integrates key issues and techniques surrounding technical infrastructure and data architecture in health informatics, and the role of information standards and ontologies in health care.

• HIM 6019 Legal and Ethical Aspects of Healthcare

  Introduces students to the study of legal and ethical principles related to patient care and health information; legal terminology and procedures; court systems; and liability of health care providers. Legal and regulatory requirements governing policies designed to safeguard and maintain health information will be explored. Students explore legal and ethical issues by applying problem-solving and decision-making models to selected case studies.

• HIM 6527 Healthcare Information Security and Privacy

  Covers the regulatory, technical, and organizational aspects of privacy and security in health care settings. Information security in health care is regulated by a complex of federal and state laws and regulations, by the technical requirements of cybersecurity, and by executive management decisions on dealing with risk to information technology and workforce training in security. Introducing students to this important area requires that all three security settings are addressed and integrated to demonstrate how regulatory, technical, and organizational factors all impact information security and compliance.

• HIM 6517 Healthcare Project Management

  Examines the defining characteristics of IT projects and introduces a variety of relevant techniques. The course includes project manager functions like managing scope, time, quality, and cost. Students develop the ability to understand critical issues involved in managing IT projects, the key areas of an IT project as identified by the Project Management Institute's (PMI) Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), create a comprehensive IS project statement of work (SOW), track and control IT project execution using earned value analysis techniques, understand the essential elements involved in closing a project, apply the basic concepts and principles of project quality and process management such as the capability maturity model (CMM) framework and assessment, understand the basic concepts of agile project management, and work effectively on a team to plan, control, and complete a project.

  Software: Microsoft Project 2016

• HIM 6628 Healthcare Data Visualization

  Addresses important aspects of healthcare analytics, processes, and tools that can be utilized. Data generated via health information technology (HIT) can help organizations gain significantly deeper insight into their performance than previous technologies (or lack of technologies) allowed. Healthcare organizations face the threat of information overload as nearly every step of healthcare becomes computerized and creates data. This includes not just data created from electronic health records (EHR) and patient portals but also medical devices, equipment tracking and scheduling systems, lab systems, and many more. This course investigates the many ways to centralize and analyze large amounts of data to harness the immense power of this information for better decision-making.

  Software: Tableau, IBM Watson Analytics

• HIM 6694 Consumer Health Informatics

  Focuses on the consumer health informatics associated with health services addressing the intersection of the patient, information technologies, and healthcare practice. This view of informatics analyzes consumers' needs for information; studies and implements methods for making information accessible to consumers; and models and integrates consumers' preferences and capabilities (e.g., health information literacy) into health information systems. This view also recognizes the changing expectations of healthcare consumers in managing their health status using new models of care (e.g. collecting patient-reported outcomes and on-demand telemedicine) supported by technology.

  Software: Extension, Balsamiq

Optional Majors

Students complete additional credits for completion of the degree by pursuing one of two majors:

Health Informatics & Analytics Major (9 credits)

The Health Informatics and Analytics major provides students with the opportunity to acquire essential skills in analytical methods, information systems, change management, and leadership with an understanding of health, healthcare, and clinical processes. An integrative, multi-disciplinary program focus develops informatics professionals aligned with the growing need for analytics-driven, evidence-based decision-making in healthcare. Students are primed to make significant contributions to the improvements in healthcare quality, efficiency, and outcomes through interdisciplinary education, research, and service in the science and application of health informatics and analytics.

Required Major Courses

• QMB 6357 Business Statistical Analysis

  Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to use a variety of statistical principles and methods, including qualitative and quantitative techniques, to evaluate healthcare-oriented research problems and to make evidence-based decisions. They will understand how to identify a process, define key performance measures, collect data, organize it using Microsoft Excel, analyze it using Excel’s statistical functions, and present their findings using appropriate graphs and charts. They will apply these skills to various healthcare-related research and practice-oriented situations and use the right tool at the right time to make data-driven decisions.

  Software: Excel, SAS, Rapidminer

• HIM 6682 Quality and Outcome Analytics

  This course will familiarize students with methods used to assess the quality of care using outcomes data and to understand and evaluate studies involving health care outcomes. Students are exposed to the mechanics of hospital quality evaluation and challenged to evaluate the medical and health services research literature on health care quality and outcome evaluations. This course exposes the student to several aspects of Health Analytics. We investigate data cleansing and transformation and supervised and unsupervised data mining techniques to investigate quality of care and health outcome measures.

  Software: Excel, Rapidminer, R, Python

• HIM 6125 Healthcare Informatics & Analytics Capstone

  This capstone course addresses the process of transforming data into information, knowledge, and practice in a healthcare setting. An operations management challenge that is amenable to IT intervention in a healthcare organization shall be identified and analyzed. It provides an integrative experience for students to apply knowledge and skills that they have obtained in prior classes. The course emphasizes the individual engagement of each student and provides a team-based forum through which each student can engage in identifying, analyzing, and solving a real-world health informatics challenge. As part of the learning process, the students explore the IT options for resolution of the challenge and then present a strategy for affecting a positive result in addressing the challenge. A lifecycle framework will be used to guide the students to integrate and apply various knowledge and skills acquired from prior classes in conducting their analyses. The course aims to change perspectives and stimulate system and critical thinking, rather than memorizing concepts. The course presents a balanced approach between strategic and operational perspectives, between business, clinical, and technical domains, and between conceptual and hands-on learning.

  *Option to replace capstone course with HIM 6858 Health Informatics and Analytics Practicum