Health Informatics Courses

In this course, students will understand barriers to intercultural communication, assess cultural differences, and apply strategies to communicate effectively with colleagues and clients from other cultures. Students will apply principles of plain language to communicate effectively to diverse audiences using a variety of communication channels. They will apply research strategies to evaluate sources of information and will apply APA standards of documentation and style to academic work. Students will analyse audience and purpose to create business correspondence using the direct approach.

In this course, students will have exposure to a comprehensive windows-based financial spreadsheet package to enhance their problem solving abilities. The package used will be Microsoft Excel for Windows. The student will use this as a tool to prepare calculations, reports, and presentations which are commonly performed in the modern office.

Students will be introduced to the use of health information systems and technology. They will explore the uses for data in health management in relation to management, operations, quality benchmarking, policy development, reporting and improvements. Students will explore various forms of data and learn to navigate through a variety of heath data repositories while learning about codes, communication and data sources. Ethical considerations around both acquisition and management of data will be examined.

In this course, students will learn how to collect data for analysis. Students will learn about the ethical challenges around data collection and best practices for responsible data use. Students will learn both theory and practical applications for research and data collection, using a wide variety of sources and involving many different approaches. This includes both quantitative and qualitative research methods, learning how to formulate research questions, choosing the appropriate tools, and how to recruit participants.

Students will be introduced to the core concepts in data and information management. The course content is centered on the core skills of identifying organizational requirements, modeling them using conceptual data modeling techniques, converting the conceptual models into relational data models and verifying its structural characteristics with normalization techniques. Students will focus on the Structured Query Language (SQL), to define and manipulate data. In addition, students will understand the data warehouse lifecycle and be introduced to dimensional modeling for data warehousing.

In this course, students will learn about the impact of policy and system design on health outcomes in both the Canadian and provincial health systems, with a focus on Ontario and Northwestern Ontario. The course will provide an overview of public policy, how public policy works and how it is implemented in the Canadian context. The course also addresses system and policy impacts on health equity.

This course will provide students with an introduction to the history of colonization of Indigenous communities in Canada. Contemporary Indigenous community issues within Northwestern Ontario (NWO) and Canada will be examined. Students will explore the unique socio-political relationships between Canada and Indigenous peoples with an emphasis on colonial, legal and political issues. With a broader understanding of the context of colonization, students will analyze contemporary relationships and efforts towards renewed relationships and reconciliation.

In this course, students will develop managerial skills to propose, plan, secure resources, budget, and lead project teams to successful completion of projects. Students will also learn why organizations have developed a formal project management process supported by the Project Management Institute (PMI) and its Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) to gain a competitive advantage. The case study approach will be used along with an investigation of software and collaboration tools that aid in carrying out activities of project planning and project execution.

In this course, students will explore the use of data in a variety of applied settings, including the research environment, clinical settings and public health. Students will learn the basic principles of epidemiology and how this is used by health analysts. Ethical considerations around both acquisition and management will be examined.

Students will investigate descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, linear regression and probability concepts, hypothesis testing and more foundational statistical tools that are applicable to data analytics. Students will also explore the R programming language for use in statistical computing and graphics.

As key members of the healthcare team, health analysts must function as competent inter-professional collaborators and communicators. Students will develop the communication skills that are critical to the role of an analyst. The ability to effectively convey complex analytical information in a variety of situations, to a variety of stakeholders and in a format that is concise and easily understood, will be a focus of this course. The creation of oral and written information briefs, presentations and accurate summaries of complex data for use in organizational decisions will be covered while respecting the privacy, security and confidentiality of personal health information.

In this course, students will be introduced to ‘big data analytics’ and the data mining process. Students will learn data mining processes and common techniques in mining health care data. Topics include an overview of the data mining process, standards and output protocols, and common techniques used in mining healthcare data.

Successfully integrating health informatics into a healthcare setting requires knowledge and skills in health management. Students engage in both theoretical and applied activities to gain a practical understanding of organizational behaviour, IT procurement and health economics. Specific topics include: motivation and leadership, decision-making, power and control, conflict, management of change, requirements scoping, requests for proposal, contracts, service level agreements, population-based health economics, health consumerism and designing performance indicators for health informatics. Through projects, students develop change management plans to maximize success when implementing health informatics in the workplace.

Students will analyze data and apply critical and creative thinking to a pertinent project. They will conduct research on the subject, think critically, solve challenging problems, and design and create the final product demonstrating their learning acquisition. They will then give an oral presentation on the project to a panel of faculty, experts, and community members who will collectively evaluate its quality & provide detailed feedback.