Basic Communication Skills in Healthcare

These are foundational skills that feature interpersonal and organization skills

HCI 293 - Onboarding to Healthcare Informatics	This course prepares students in the Healthcare Informatics program for transition into the baccalaureate-level study. Students gain an understanding of program expectations, campus resources, and strategies for success in an online learning environment. Student success is promoted through managed remote study approaches, working in remote teams, and writing that focuses on business and technical writing. You learn how to define problems and analyze data for evidence-based solutions. This course also introduces strategies for identifying students' strengths, finding mentors, networking, and building a resume by working on an experience-based project to apply concepts learned in the program. Students are introduced to the case study approach to learning.
HCML 375 - Project Management for Healthcare	Examines project management theory and practice with an emphasis on project management in healthcare settings. Students will evaluate tools used to develop and manage healthcare projects common for the healthcare manager and apply appropriate tools for developing a project based on a case study.
PHIL 365 - Biomedical Ethics: Theory & Practice	Examine ethical issues that arise in healthcare, such as provider-patient relations, death and dying, reproductive issues, human and animal experimentation, and bioethics and public policy. Offers the knowledge and skills needed to research, analyze, and evaluate positions taken on these or related issues. Special attention is paid to the practical use of ethics in clinical practice and in public society.
HCI 460 - Leading Change in Healthcare Informatics	Prepares students for leadership roles in healthcare informatics. Covers leadership characteristics, roles, and responsibilities in healthcare informatics. Topics include leadership theories, responsibilities, and skills. Addresses the unique role of leaders in managing transformational change in healthcare informatics. Students will assess their own leadership skills and develop plans for lifelong learning as leaders in healthcare informatics.
HCI 330 - Teaching and Training in Healthcare	This course addresses general and special issues associated with adult learning in healthcare information technology. Covers training methods used for diverse, interdisciplinary audiences. Topics include defining training needs, course design, and development, evaluation, and assessment. Students assess ways to motivate and engage adult learners and develop methods for virtual and in-person course delivery.
CMST 330 - Intercultural Health Communication	Examines how a healthcare practitioner may engage in effective communication with culturally dissimilar individuals in a variety of contexts. Students practice intercultural strategies and skills.
ECON 315 - Economics of Healthcare	Covers the principles of micro and macroeconomics as applied to the healthcare industry. Examines how healthcare demand differs from that of other goods. Major topic areas include identifying and measuring the cost and benefit of marketing and government solutions to various healthcare issues, the role risk plays in the demand for and supply of health insurance, the incorporation of general healthcare, medical care, government policies and health insurance in determining impacts on private profit and social economic well-being.

Healthcare Focused Courses

This set of courses identifies the types of organization and roles in healthcare and how informatics is applied to patient care and operational processes.

HCI 310 - Foundations of Healthcare Informatics	This course covers a range of topics that are included in healthcare informatics. A key topic that is covered in the types of information technology that are found in healthcare organizations, including electronic health records, supply chain, financial systems, and other systems that support healthcare technology. Another subject reviewed here is the types of data used in healthcare that support standards, interoperability, analytics, master data management, and population health. These topics are applied in the areas of quality, usability, process, leadership, and change management. This course provides the framework for understanding how these topics relate to each other and are applied in healthcare informatics.
HCI 315 - Fundamentals of Electronic Health Records	This course provides a broad overview of the electronic health record, the primary source of patient data in healthcare organizations. The foundational elements of the electronic health record are the types of data that are used in the application to diagnose and treat patients and the equipment and infrastructure needed to support the electronic records. This course also reviews the functional areas of electronic health records, including computerized physician order entry, patient information and revenue management, ancillary, and medication management. The primary focus of the electronic health record emphasizes usability and design for the acute care setting. Furthermore, this course also covers the use of EHRs in clinical, ambulatory, and skilled nursing and long-term care facilities.
HCI 301 - Evolution of Healthcare in the United States	To understand the complexities and nuances of the US healthcare systems we look to the past to discover how war, policy changes, and reforms have shaped the US healthcare system of today. We look at how healthcare is delivered to patients, how it is financed, and how providers are paid. We compare the US to international healthcare systems, and the outcome of that is a shock to most students
HCI 302 - Healthcare Quality Management	This course covers healthcare quality management, including organizational and nursing management, quality reporting, and the regulatory and accreditation process. Quality in healthcare includes patient safety and experience, infection control, utilization management, and organizational performance. The students are introduced to types of quality reporting and indicators, surveys, key performance metrics, education, and compliance.
HCI 360 - Seeking and Evaluating Digital Health Information	Do you find yourself googling your healthcare symptoms? So do 65% of the population! This course will help you understand the theory and methodology behind every search.
HCI 410 - Healthcare Clinical Systems Analysis	As an informatics professional, your main role is to bridge the gap between clinical process and technology. This course prepares you for this role by presenting strategies and tools to develop, analyze, and model healthcare processes and systems. Emphasis is on capturing and evaluating the needs and requirements of various stakeholders, including physicians, nurses, patients, and caregivers. In addition, students will learn how to satisfy information technology general practices and regulations.

Information Technology Focused Courses

These courses examine information technology and how IT works with informatics

HCI 435 - Healthcare Systems Operations

This course covers all the functions and practices in healthcare system operations. The foundations of system operations that support healthcare information technology are the physical hardware that includes data storage, networking, the use of cloud services, and the virtual management of data. It also includes programs and applications that include databases, data warehouses, and data lakes, and the inventory of programs in application portfolios. Standards and interoperability are enforced through data standards, interfaces, and governance. This class also covers data center management topics in system performance, help desk, cybersecurity, disaster recovery, e-Discovery, and contract management.

HCI 350 - Usability and User-Centered Design

This course covers the approaches and strategies in user-centered design in healthcare. Students will study usability and user experience (UX) and apply basic design principles, design thinking, process design and prototyping, testing, and evaluation to healthcare information systems.

Data Analytics Focused Courses

These courses examine the types of data in healthcare and apply a variety of analytic skills to be able to assess and solve problems.

HCI 320 - Data Standards in Healthcare Informatics	This course defines the range of data standards that provide interoperability and systemic integration, and it further defines the types of data standards available across the continuum of healthcare. The concepts in the course describe how the types of data management work, including master data management, data governance, and metadata management, which will give the students the foundation for data storage and mapping. Students will also learn the use of data warehouses, data marts, and data lakes, and provide the concepts behind health information exchanges. The type of data to be covered includes medical, healthcare, and patient data. Students will learn concepts like census management and calculation of service days, and diagnostic and reimbursement data. You will also learn to track important marketing data like quality reporting and patient satisfaction scoring. Finally, you will learn about hospital operational data like supplies, staffing, revenue, and financial data.
HCI 450 - Healthcare Data Analytics	Explores the scope and role of data and data analytics in healthcare. Covers data management concepts including data mapping and architecture, governance, validation, storage and maintenance. Introduces basic analytic techniques used to generate findings for interpretation and techniques used to meet end-user needs for visualizing and reporting results.
HCI 456 - Healthcare Data Visualization	A picture tells a thousand words; it can also show a 1000 or more data points! Learn how to tell the story of data by making it a visualization. Learn about various sources of healthcare data including how it is stored and managed. Learn multiple formats and tools for visualizing the data.
HCI 380 - Healthcare Code Sets & Clinical Terminologies	You've heard of medical terminology but what about structured terminology systems? Medical vocabularies, classification systems, and code sets represent everything from a medical diagnosis, to how much a patient is billed for the service they received. They are used in a variety of healthcare settings, including medical, nursing, laboratory, and allied health.
HCI 470 - Healthcare Statistical Analysis & Application	Apply statistical and graphical analysis approaches to healthcare analytics. Course focuses on DMAIC, a process improvement method that emphasizes metrics and analysis, and applying outcomes to develop control plans. Key topics include defining user requirements, factors that are critical to quality, and methods to define process capability and benchmarking. Various statistical software will be examined

Experiential Course

These courses allow students to apply their HCI skills in healthcare organizations. Note these courses should be taken at the end of the program.

HCI 465 - Experiential Learning Preparation	This course prepares students for the HCI Capstone and Field Studies courses. Students will prepare a professional job search strategy and marketing strategy for a career in informatics. Students will also work with healthcare professionals to develop a proposal for a project plan that will be used in the field study (HCI 475) or capstone (HCI 485) courses.
HCI 475 - HCI Field Studies	This course provides students the opportunity to demonstrate mastery of the program curriculum through direct observation at a healthcare organization and the application of an informatics project.
HCI 485 - Healthcare Informatics Capstone	This course provides students the opportunity to demonstrate mastery of the program curriculum through the application of informatics analytical and statistical approaches to an organizational healthcare topic.

Note that all the courses in bold are required in the BAS program