Health Care Quality, Statistics, and Database Management
Hands-On!

Welcome!
Please read before or during the first week of class.

COURSE NUMBER:

HSC5512

COURSE TITLE:

Health Care Quality, Statistics, and Database Management

COURSE OVERVIEW:

This course is part of the Medical Informatics Certification Program.

COURSE COORDINATOR:

Melanie A. Sutton, Ph.D.[biosketch]
Justice Mbizo, Dr.PH[biosketch]

CONTACT INFORMATION:

msutton@uwf.edu and jmbizo@uwf.edu

PREREQUISITES OR COREQUISITES:

• Working knowledge of medical terminology
• Working knowledge of statistics
• Working knowledge of how to use personal computers, including knowledge of word-processing, spreadsheet packages and Internet searching
• Training in a health care-related field at the Associate's or Bachelor's level
  
  Students lacking any of the above prerequisites but still interested in the Medical Informatics Certificate Program should contact Dr. Melanie A. Sutton (msutton@uwf.edu) for possible alternative substitute courses or training.

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This course emphasizes how to develop, deploy, and evaluate new tools to analyze clinical data resources. Special attention is given to improving health care quality and decision-making to address the needs of a clinical practice or administration. Case studies involving the development and assessment of databases for disease management and drug utilization will be covered. Students will learn how to collect, summarize, statistically analyze, present, and interpret data. Students will be trained in the fundamentals of database design and information retrieval as they develop a working tool to address health care quality improvement. Finally, legal and ethical issues involving training, documentation, security, confidentiality, the use of informed consent, and regulatory requirements will be addressed. In general, upon completion of this course, a student will acquire the skills to be:
• able to serve as a liaison to doctors, administrators, and other health care professionals in the use of current and emerging computer technologies to improve health care quality.
• able to develop, deploy, and evaluate computer applications to facilitate health care quality improvement or other needs of a clinical practice or administration, addressing issues of data collection, analysis, interpretration and reporting.
• able to address legal and ethical issues while designing and utilizing computer appications in health care quality improvement, including training, documentation, security, confidentiality, the use of informed consent, and regulatory requirements.
• able to propose, report, and referee evaluation studies of health information systems.

STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES (Objectives):

This course meets the following programmatic goals for the Certificate in Medical Informatics program:
• Project Management:
  • propose and evaluate plans for collecting, storing, and statistically analyzing data related to case studies in health care.
  • design and implement plans for converting data for use in multiple applications.
  • effectively use standard spreadsheets, statistics packages, and database management software to address specific case studies in disease management and drug utilization.
  • design and evaluate alternative strategies for Web-based interfaces to data and analyses.
• Communication:
  • apply health care laws (e.g., HIPAA) and professional ethics (e.g., IEEE-ACM Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice) to cases involving the use of data resources in heath care practices.

TOPICS COVERED:

	Topic	Approximate coverage
1.	Information technology considerations for strategic planning; transforming data into information	3 hours
2.	Fundamentals of collecting, summarizing, statistically analyzing, presenting, and interpreting data; spreadsheet/statistics package basics	9 hours
3.	Information systems training: database design	9 hours
4.	Information systems training: information retrieval and reporting	9 hours
5.	Transferring data between programs; programming and Website development	3 hours
6.	Case study: disease management	4 hours
7.	Case study: drug utilization	4 hours
8.	Project management: continuous quality improvement; system maintenance; proposing, reporting, and refereeing evaluation studies	3 hours
9.	Utilization, risk, and outcomes management; legal and ethical issues: training, documentation, security, confidentiality, informed consent, regulatory requirements (e.g., HIPAA)	4 hours
	Total instructional hours	48 hours total

REQUIRED TEXTS/MATERIALS:

• Medical Informatics Resource Site
• This course will draw upon a variety of additional reading materials to cover the topics provided above, with links provided within the eLearning course managament system.

SPECIAL TECHNOLOGY UTILIZED BY STUDENTS: (beyond baseline requirements of e-mail and word processing)

• The following software will be utilized in this course:
  • Excel, SAS, Access, ColdFusion, Perl
• Students will be provided with UWF computer accounts and access to a computer laboratory to complete in-class assignments and on-line course modules.

REFERENCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY:

• Hebda, T., Czar, P. & Mascara, C. (2001). Handbook of Informatics for Nurses and Health Care Professionals. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
• Le, C.T. (2001). Health and Numbers: A Problems-Based Introduction to Biostatistics. Wiley-Liss, 2nd edition.
• Friedman, C.P. & Wyatt, J.C. (1997). Evaluation Methods in Medical Informatics. Springer-Verlag.

GRADING/EVALUATION:

• 30% Quizzes. Online quizzes will be based on lecture material, laboratory exercises, and provided on-line resources. Test materials may include short answer and essay questions.
• 35% Laboratory exercises. These assignments provide the hands-on component to the course and may be completed online or in UWF computer labs.
• 35% Term project. This project will include the development, implementation, presentation and evaluation of a computer application addressing health care quality improvement. Project brainstorming and milestone discussions will be scheduled throughout the semester. All final projects will be presented electronically. A final component of this project will also include each student participating in an online discussion and providing professional feedback to other classmates.

EXPECTATIONS FOR ACADEMIC CONDUCT/PLAGIARISM POLICY:

• Academic Conduct Policy [Web format | PDF format | rtf format]
• Plagiarism Policy [Word format | PDF format | rtf format]
• Student Handbook [PDF format]

  It is the philosophy of The University of West Florida that academic dishonesty is a completely unacceptable mode of conduct and will not be tolerated in any form. All persons involved in academic dishonesty will be disciplined in accordance with University regulations and procedures. Discipline may include suspension or expulsion from the University. Scholastic dishonesty includes but is not limited to cheating, plagiarism, collusion, the submission for credit of any work or materials that are attributable in whole or in part to another person, taking an examination for another person, any act designed to give unfair advantage to a student or the attempt to commit such acts.

  In addition, any behavior that interferes with the conduct of a class is classified as disruptive behavior and will not be tolerated. Although not exhaustive, examples of disruptive behavior would include: routinely entering class late or departing class early without specific permission from the instructor; talking in class without being recognized; threatening faculty or fellow students or verbal abuse of faculty or fellow students; physical or verbal displays of anger; etc.

ASSISTANCE:

Students with special needs who require specific examination-related or other course-related accommodations should contact Disabled Student Services (DSS), dss@uwf.edu, (850) 474-2387. DSS will provide the student with a letter for the instructor that will specify any recommended accommodations.

Every effort will be made to accommodate the special needs of disabled students. Please see the instructor in the privacy of his office during the first week of class to inform him of your particular needs. All such accommodations are officially arranged through the Office for Disabled Student Services and a letter from this office must accompany your request.