Expanding the reach of the traditional health informatics and information management (HIIM) program is essential in today’s academic environment. New and established academic programs are adding HIIM-type courses to meet the needs of health information technology and accreditation standards within their respective curricula.
The Master of Science in Health Informatics and Information Management (MS in HIIM) at East Carolina University commenced in the fall of 2013 in response to AHIMA’s call for more graduate programs. In this article (the second of a three-part series), we discuss the need for optimization of the program and describe the process undertaken during initial revision of the MS in HIIM. We begin with competition analysis and describe how the deficiencies identified led to the creation of a committee charged with optimizing the program.
This article explains how a baccalaureate-level academic program’s health information systems project and its specific project activities can be linked throughout the health informatics and information management (HIIM) curriculum. Using information technology applications as the theme, it demonstrates how professional-level courses and their subsequent activities can be coordinated throughout the HIIM program.
In the first part of this two-part series, the methodology behind the creation of a graduate-level course in healthcare database systems at East Carolina University was presented. The distinction between healthcare and traditional database courses was examined, along with construction of content. Specifically, minimum and extended construct sets pertaining to database modeling and interrogation were defined, taking into consideration accreditation requirements and a desired level of skill. The focus of this article is on implementation details, including course responsiveness and problem deconstruction strategies.
