Health Informatics Course

Lesson 1 • History and Evolution of the Field

Traces milestones from paper records to digital systems. Provides context for understanding why current standards and workflows exist.

Lesson 2 • Informatics Roles and Career Pathways

Profiles clinical informaticist, analyst, and CMIO roles with required skills. Helps students map course content to real career trajectories.

Lesson 3 • Data Types in Healthcare

Distinguishes structured, unstructured, and semi-structured clinical data. Prepares students to select appropriate tools for each data category.

Lesson 4 • Defining Health Informatics

Covers the discipline's definition, boundaries, and relationship to adjacent fields. Anchors all subsequent chapters by establishing shared terminology.

Lesson 1 • Clinical Terminology Systems

Introduces SNOMED CT, LOINC, ICD, and CPT as the vocabulary layer of interoperability. Students map clinical concepts to correct code sets.

Lesson 2 • Interoperability Frameworks

Explains syntactic, semantic, and organizational interoperability layers. Students assess real-world exchange scenarios against each layer.

Lesson 3 • Messaging and Document Standards

Covers HL7 v2, HL7 FHIR, and CDA document architecture. Students trace a message from source system to receiving application.

Lesson 4 • Evaluating Interoperability Maturity

Applies maturity models to score an organization's exchange capability. Connects standards knowledge to strategic improvement planning.

Lesson 1 • EHR Configuration and Build

Covers order sets, clinical decision support rules, and form design within EHR build environments. Students apply configuration principles to a simulated scenario.

Lesson 2 • EHR Architecture and Components

Breaks down clinical, administrative, and technical modules within an EHR. Establishes the system map students use throughout the chapter.

Lesson 3 • EHR Implementation and Go-Live

Outlines project phases, training strategies, and go-live support models. Students draft a high-level implementation plan for a small clinic scenario.

Lesson 4 • Clinical Workflow Mapping

Uses process mapping to document current-state and future-state clinical workflows. Students identify friction points that informatics interventions can resolve.

Lesson 1 • Data Lifecycle Management

Maps data from creation through archival and destruction with retention policy guidance. Students apply lifecycle stages to a clinical data scenario.

Lesson 2 • Data Quality Dimensions

Applies accuracy, completeness, timeliness, and consistency dimensions to clinical datasets. Students score a sample dataset and propose remediation steps.

Lesson 3 • Metadata and Data Cataloging

Explains business, technical, and operational metadata and their role in data discovery. Students build a metadata schema for a clinical data element.

Lesson 4 • Data Governance Principles

Defines governance roles, policies, and accountability structures for health data assets. Provides the organizational foundation for all data management activities.

Lesson 1 • Compliance Frameworks and Auditing

Maps security controls to healthcare compliance frameworks and audit requirements. Students perform a gap analysis against a selected compliance framework.

Lesson 2 • Risk Assessment and Management

Applies qualitative and quantitative risk assessment methodologies to health IT environments. Students complete a structured risk register for a sample organization.

Lesson 3 • Privacy Principles in Healthcare

Covers patient rights, minimum necessary standards, and notice of privacy practices. Grounds security work in the ethical and regulatory rationale for data protection.

Lesson 4 • Access Control and Identity Management

Covers role-based access, multi-factor authentication, and privileged access management. Students design an access control matrix for a clinical application.

Lesson 1 • CDS Design and Alert Fatigue

Applies evidence-based design principles to reduce non-actionable alerts. Students redesign an overriding alert using specificity and tiering strategies.

Lesson 2 • CDS Fundamentals and Taxonomy

Defines CDS types including alerts, order sets, dashboards, and documentation templates. Establishes the classification framework used throughout the chapter.

Lesson 3 • Evaluating CDS Effectiveness

Applies pre-post and interrupted time series designs to measure CDS impact on outcomes. Students select an evaluation design and define success metrics.

Lesson 4 • Knowledge Representation Methods

Covers rule-based logic, ontologies, and clinical guidelines as knowledge sources for CDS. Students translate a clinical guideline into executable rule logic.

Lesson 1 • Clinical Quality Measures and Reporting

Defines measure types, numerator-denominator logic, and reporting submission workflows. Students calculate a quality measure from a sample dataset.

Lesson 2 • Data Visualization for Healthcare

Applies visualization best practices to clinical dashboards and executive scorecards. Students critique and redesign a poorly constructed clinical dashboard.

Lesson 3 • Data Warehousing and ETL Processes

Covers dimensional modeling, ETL pipeline design, and data warehouse architecture for health data. Students design a star schema for a clinical quality measure.

Lesson 4 • Predictive Modeling in Clinical Settings

Introduces regression, classification, and risk stratification models applied to patient populations. Students interpret model outputs and communicate findings to clinicians.

Lesson 1 • Innovation and Emerging Technology Adoption

Applies innovation adoption frameworks to assess readiness for AI, telehealth, and wearables. Students build a technology adoption roadmap for a selected innovation.

Lesson 2 • Health IT Strategic Planning

Aligns IT investments with organizational mission, clinical goals, and financial constraints. Students conduct a SWOT analysis and draft strategic IT objectives.

Lesson 3 • Vendor Selection and Contract Management

Covers RFP development, evaluation criteria, and contract negotiation for health IT systems. Students score vendor proposals using a weighted evaluation matrix.

Lesson 4 • Change Management in Healthcare IT

Applies structured change management models to EHR and informatics initiatives. Students create a stakeholder engagement plan for a major system transition.