Foundations in Healthcare Management

Course Overview: The purpose of this course is to provide the background and detail on the healthcare system and the supporting information technology. This course will enable the student to understand the key healthcare functions, the critical applications used by health organizations and the underlying data and analytics. The course will describe the important differences between healthcare IT and other types of business.

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: Introduction to Healthcare Information Technology by Mark Ciampa and Mark Revels

Prerequisites: Successfully enrolled in the Health Informatics & Technology Certificate Program

Course Details:

Week 1: Overview of Technology

  • • Infrastructure
  • • Key terms
  • • Where we are today

Week 2: Overview of Healthcare System

  • • Structure of the healthcare system
  • • Payer versus providers
  • • Role of government

Week 3: Overview of Healthcare functions

  • • Clinical
  • • Revenue cycle
  • • Financial
  • • Scheduling
  • • Purchasing

Week 4: Specialized Healthcare Applications

  • • EMR
  • • Billing
  • • Analytics
  • • Consumer tools

Week 5: Healthcare Data

  • • Patient identifier
  • • Patient medical history
  • • Payer information for billing
  • • Clinical activities
  • • Orders for services
  • • Pharmacy
  • • Lab
  • • Coding (ICD10)

Week 6: Organization

  • • How is IT structured
  • • What are key roles

Week 7: The Speed of Change