Course Overview: The nature of healthcare has always been a blend of the art and science of medicine. Technology innovation, information aggregation and advanced analytics are embedded in the way healthcare is financed and delivered. This course is designed to bring the changing healthcare picture into focus with discussions of what technologies are emerging. It addresses how changing strategies will affect the healthcare scene. Students will use this course as the culmination of their healthcare IT studies to position their experience into a future state point of view.

Delivery Method & Length of Course: Fully Online instruction using a combination of assigned readings, online interaction with other students, and short essays. Each assigned area will be in one week increments for a total of seven weeks duration.

Materials Required: There is no textbook required for this course. It is built on high interaction with contemporaneous reading materials and structured student discussions taking place online. Students are expected to do readings and post at least twice weekly online in our class discussion boards. Please keep up with the course and make every effort to make your deadlines. The cutoff for articles and your postings is Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time zone.

Prerequisites: Successful completion of HIT Certificate courses:

• Foundations in Healthcare Management
• Clinical & IT Program Management
• Healthcare Informatics

Course Details:

Week One – Course Introduction and Orientation

• Become aware of your point of view regarding healthcare.
• Explore different perceptions of the healthcare ecosystem.
• Develop a class participation methodology and process.
• Discuss culminating project.

Week Two – The Role of the Consumer

• Explore the differences between the words “consumer” and “patient” in a healthcare context in the abstract and in relation to each other
• Determine methods of increasing integration of consumer based thinking with healthcare models.

Week Three – Business Models

• Understand the new business models taking hold in healthcare.
• Understand the motivation and business differences between healthcare financing (payers) and the provision of healthcare (providers).
• Determine how and why payers and providers are converging

Week Four – Current Technology Innovations

• Review current state and development of healthcare technologies
  • Mobil & Wearables
  • Portable
  • Telemedicine
• Determine the goals and limitations of the Quantified Self

Week Five – Developments in Government Programs

• Look at the role of government regulation, financing and delivery of healthcare
• Assign Culminating project related to understanding the goals the healthcare ecosystem.

Week Six – New Technology Developments

• Examine the possibilities for distributed ledger and blockchain on the healthcare world
• Look at new technologies that will drive the way healthcare is distributed between patient, provider, payer and regulator.

Week Seven – Student Discussions and Presentations

• Receive and discuss student presentations and points of view on the current and future state of healthcare technology. Exchange ideas on the future of healthcare IT and its impact.