10x10 with University of Alabama at Birmingham: Course Description

Detailed Course Outline

1. Introduction to Health Informatics and Evolution of Healthcare Information Systems

• 1.1. Definitions of Health Informatics
• 1.2. Changes over the last 50 years affecting the development and use of IT in healthcare
• 1.3. Current and future forces affecting the direction of IT in healthcare

2. System Lifecycle and Strategic Planning for IT systems

• 2.1 Strategies for Strategic Planning for IT
• 2.2 Component Alignment Model
• 2.3 Case Study exercise
• 2.4 Knowledge Management and Use of IT for Operational Efficiency    

3. Planning for Acquisition and Implementation of Healthcare IT systems

• 3.1 IT Governance and Management
• 3.2 Operational Planning
• 3.3 Analyzing functional requirements
• 3.4. System Acquisition
• 3.5 System Implementation
• 3.6 Case Study Exercise

4. Networking and Telecommunications, Information Integration and Public Heath Informatics  

• 4.1 Information architecture for the support of healthcare IT
• 4.2 Challenges in information integration within and among healthcare institutions
• 4.3 Healthcare IT standards

5. Health IT, Patient Safety and Electronic Health Records  

• 5.1 Clinical Information Systems Overview
• 5.2. EHR-Why do we need it?
• 5.3 Ideal functional capabilities for the EHR
• 5.4 Clinical Data Repositories
• 5.5 Technical and Organizational issues in EHR Implementation
• 5.6 Health Care Provider Order Entry-Managing the Challenges
• 5.7 CDSS-Overview and Structure
• 5.8 CDSS-Impact of CDSS
• 5.9 Challenges in Implementing CDSS
• 5.10 Health Information Exchange (HIE)
• 5.11 HIE Challenges

6. Databases, Data Warehouses and Data Mining

• 6.1 Databases in Healthcare IT
• 6.2 Data Warehouses and Data Mining in Health IT

7. Public Health Informatics and Population Health

• 7.1 Public Health Informatics
• 7.2 Population Health

8. Privacy and Security of Health Information

• 8.1 Definitions of concepts
• 8.2 Legal and Ethical background and current status of privacy and security legislation
• 8.3 Recommendations on best practices
• 8.4 Tradeoffs of security and access

9. Legal and Ethical Issues in Health Informatics

• 9.1 Legal and Ethical Issues in the use of Clinical Decision Support Systems
• 9.2 Ethical Issues in Telemedicine
• 9.3 Ethical Issues in Consumer Health Informatics (including online health information, email between patients and providers)
• 9.4 Legal and Ethical Obligations of Developers, Vendors and Users of Health IT
• 9.5 Regulations and laws related to health IT

10.  Knowledge Management

• 10.1 What is Knowledge Management?
• 10.2 Clinical and Business Knowledge Management
• 10.3 Knowledge Management Tasks
• 10.4 Role of IT in knowledge management and improving operational efficiency in healthcare

11. Evaluation of Health Information Technology

• 11.1 Evaluation Strategies for Health IT
• 11.2 Realizing Benefits of Health
• 11.3 Economic Evaluation of health IT

12. New Applications of Informatics in Healthcare

• Artificial Intelligence Applications
• Other topics (to be determined)

13. Student Presentations

• Miscellaneous topics

The AMIA 10x10 with UAB course will consist of 12-weeks of on-line training, and an optional in-person session held in conjunction with the 2023 AMIA Annual Symposium taking place November 11 - 15, 2023 in New Orleans, LA. The Web-based portion of the course will be provided through readings, on-line lectures and interactive discussions. The final optional session will bring together attendees to meet leaders in the field and other students. Students will also have the opportunity to take targeted training through AMIA education programs. The tuition covers tuition and fees for both the main online course portion and the final in-person session. 10x10 registrants will receive member rates to any AMIA meeting they attend during the year of their 10x10 course.

After participating in this activity, students should be better able to discuss the:

• Role of information technology (IT) and informatics in healthcare delivery including their role in improving the quality, safety and efficiency of healthcare delivery
• Organizational (intra and inter-organizational) and financial context in planning, implementing and evaluating healthcare IT
• Historical antecedents of the present use of IT, as well as the current and likely future uses of healthcare IT

This survey course provides a broad overview of the field, highlighting the key issues and challenges for the field. The course is taught primarily in an asynchronous manner, however, students are strongly encouraged to keep up with the course materials in order to benefit from the interactive discussion with faculty and other students.

The course uses the following teaching modalities:

• Voice-over-Powerpoint lectures: The key material is delivered through the course delivery tool. To view the Powerpoints you will need the JAVA Script plug-in and/or Flash plug-in which is freely available and already installed in almost all Web browsers. The content is easily accessed by any connection to the Internet.
• Interactive threaded discussion: Students engage in discussion on important issues using the on-line bulletin board. The course director will provide feedback to students either as part of the discussion or at the conclusion of discussion.
• Reading assignments: The course uses a textbook designed to provide a practical overview of key issues in the informatics field and supplemental readings as necessary. In addition, students are pointed to other key documents, articles, reports, and papers from the field. The textbook must be purchased by the student and is not included in the tuition price. The text that is required for this course is: Health Care Information Systems: A Practical Approach for Health Care Management, 5th Edition - Karen A. Wager, Frances W. Lee, John P. Glaser. 2022. ISBN: 978-1-119-85386-2. Please be aware that the fifth edition of this text is required. (Required textbook.)
• Additional assignments: Students will prepare a presentation that will be submitted online and optionally presented during the 2023 AMIA Annual Symposium.

The on-line part of the course is accessed via the Canvas course delivery tool. At the onset of the course, each student will be provided a login and password by the UAB distance learning staff, who also provide technical support for the course. In addition to the textbook, all other assigned readings are either freely available on-line or provided by UAB.