Certificate
Graduate Certificate in Health Informatics and Digital Health
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What will I study?
Overview
Intended learning outcomes
Graduates will:
- Demonstrate an understanding of how digital data, information and knowledge are generated and managed for clinical care, biomedical research, public health, and health policy and planning
- Communicate knowledgeably about the uses of core health and biomedical informatics concepts, tools and methods
- Critically evaluate approaches to information systems and information technology in contemporary healthcare in Australia and internationally
Sample course plan
View some sample course plans to help you select subjects that will meet the requirements for this certificate.
50 point plan
Four subjects taken over one or two years part-time (one or two subjects per semester)
Explore this course
Explore the subjects you could choose as part of this certificate.
- 12.5 pts
This subject offers an overview of major health informatics research areas and methods that contribute to quality improvement, scientific research, and technological innovation in healthcare and biomedicine. The subject sets out the scientific foundations of digital health, and disciplined approaches to understanding the implications of digital health for health system performance.
The subject is arranged in blocks of study that examine methods for: (a) Undertaking digital health research and innovation projects, including: justifying a project in pragmatic and conceptual terms; drawing on existing practice and knowledge; specifying and staging work packages; meeting needs for partnerships and resources; assuring socially and ethically responsible conduct; reporting on progress rigorously and communicating for impact; (b) Managing exponential growth in health and biomedical knowledge, including: increasing openness in research data life cycle management; automating processes of generating, synthesising, and translating evidence; assuring the quality of electronic decision support systems for clinicians and patients; producing sophisticated forecasts and scenarios of the future of health; (c) Analysing structured and unstructured health data, including: wrangling phenome, exposome and other omics data; scaling up clinical, translational and population health research on platforms; approaching artificial intelligence in medicine through data analytics techniques and machine learning; (d) Modelling and simulating the dynamics of health conditions and health services, including: building personalised and population-level models of health and disease; mapping patient journeys, clinical workflows, and health supply chains; creating immersive environments for healthcare system learning and research.
- 12.5 pts
This subject is compulsory for students enrolled in the Master of Public Health, Master of Epidemiology and the Master of Science (Epidemiology). Students should enrol in this subject early in their program of study.
The subject introduces the fundamental concepts of statistics and the essential methods required to equip students to perform basic statistical analyses and interpret research findings in the public health setting.
- 12.5 pts
Introduction to the principles and practice of dealing with data, including measurement scales, data organisation, summaries, study design and inference. Students will learn how to think critically about the use of data in the public and private sectors, and appraise how results and analyses are presented by outlets such as the media. Emphasis will focus on interpretation and understanding of the appropriate use of data rather than the technical details of performing the analysis.
Group A
Students with a clinical background must complete HLTH90006 all other students should complete ISYS90069
- Basics of Digital Health for Clinicians 12.5 pts
Digital health is rapidly transforming health and healthcare. Information and communication technology (ICT) is an important factor in quality, safety, access, and efficiency in healthcare. This subject provides an overview of digital health and the influence of ICTs in clinical care, as well as in clinical research, population health and healthcare system planning.
Digital health current approaches and future directions are explored from the perspectives of several domains: health and biomedical sciences, information science and information technology, management sciences, and behavioural and social sciences- that is, aligned within major health informatics competency frameworks such as the Certified Health Informatician Australasia (www.healthinformaticscertification.com) and the American Medical Informatics Association (http://www.cahiim.org/hi/curriculumrequirements.html ).
In addition to providing a clinically-oriented introductory subject in the University’s Graduate Certificate in Health Informatics and Digital Health, it is also suitable for single subject enrolment by practising clinicians or postgraduate students in any clinical health profession
- Digital Transformation of Health 12.5 pts
Healthcare is information intensive. Health data are generated, shared, consumed, and stored in a variety of partially overlapping complex networks. Healthcare lags behind many other sectors, despite efforts to use digital technologies to shape and improve health data and information processes since the middle of the 20th Century. The need for digital transformation of health is driven by socio-economic concerns (making healthcare more accessible and affordable) and patient safety (reducing medical errors, and redundant and ineffective interventions).
This subject introduces the background, current state, and future opportunities of digital health. It provides a basic understanding of health and disease and how individuals experience both. It explores the nature of biomedical data, information, and knowledge - and how digital technologies are shaping the way these are used. Digital health technologies are examined from ethical, historical, technological, and psycho-social perspectives, considering positive and negative impacts.
Group B
Students must choose one elective subject from the following
- IT Infrastructure for Digital Health 12.5 pts
This subject develops technical capabilities required for sound infrastructure decision-making about digital health solutions and management, including telehealth, cloud computing, security and standards. It reviews the digital health building blocks of hardware, hosting platforms and networks. It identifies requirements for designing solutions to support clinical workflows and the need for interoperability of systems, as well as outlining technical management and governance issues.
Five major topics are covered in lectures and tutorials, as well as demonstrations and site visits where possible: (a) End user computing and the health devices layer; (b) Digital health network connectivity; (c) Health information and communication systems, platforms and hosting; (d) Functional interoperability and secure messaging in healthcare ; (e) Governance and management of health ICT infrastructure.
- Structuring and Managing Patient Data 12.5 pts
This subject develops familiarity with technical and administrative aspects of health information science – when, why and how health data can be generated, collected, stored, communicated and integrated to inform patient care, health research and health services management. It provides an overview of the knowledge and tools that are essential for managing and governing digital patient record data for primary and secondary uses.
Lectures and tutorials cover four major topics: (a) Structuring health data in the era of big data in healthcare; (b) Managing and governing electronic health and medical records for safety and quality of care, including: standards, terminologies and mapping approaches applicable to clinical data and clinical documentation; (c) Structural and semantic interoperability to support data use for connected care and population health, including: Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR); (d) Managing and governing secondary use of data, including health services administration and health research, including: approaches to data privacy and security, repositories, retrieval, quality assessment, and linkage.
- Technology and Ageing 12.5 pts
This subject looks at the ways in which recent technological advancements can revolutionise the experience, management and future of ageing. Innovations in how we age are explored from multiple perspectives, including how technology can support autonomy and independent living as well as social connectedness to minimise the isolation common in later life.
The subject offers an introduction to the aged care information technology industry and major products and services. Controversial improvements in assistive technologies are covered, such as robotics and sensors that monitor behaviour and health conditions. Lastly, this subject considers technologies for end-of-life support, for longevity and for regenerative medicine. This subject opens up challenges and possibilities for ageing that have implications for older adults, health practitioners, caregivers, service providers, policymakers and researchers.
- Designing Digital Health Solutions 12.5 pts
AIMS
This subject provides an overview of design, implementation and evaluation considerations for developers of major digital health solutions and applications, including electronic health records (EHR), telehealth, clinical decision support systems (CDSS), consumer health self-management, and innovative tools for biomedical research.
Students are presented with a selection of digital health design challenges faced by real-world health IT developers. Students work in small teams to plan and propose their response to their selected challenge.
INDICATIVE CONTENT
Key stages and major considerations in developing digital health solutions are covered as follows:
- Requirements gathering
- Interaction design
- Prototyping
- User experience evaluation
- Regulatory environment
- Ethical issues
- Consumer Participatory Health Technology 12.5 pts
Growing numbers of consumers are actively using various social Internet technologies for health-related purposes – to facilitate taking care of their own health, accessing health services and getting involved in health research, for example. These consumers are influencing new approaches to health professional practice and health service design. Taken together these are signs of a paradigm shift to a more participatory model of digital health, a model whose benefits and risks are not yet entirely clear.
Topics include health online social networks and social media, shareable person-generated health data from mobile apps and wearable sensors, virtual clinical services and patient avatars, crowd sourcing public health and health innovation, and other aspects of participatory health informatics. The focus is on understanding the tools, the rules and the evidence available to inform good practice. Learning and teaching methods include online interactions, on-campus lectures and guest speakers, case studies and tutorial discussions, and a project with a partner health organisation.
- Digital Health Information Services 12.5 pts
This subject provides knowledge and skills to support the work of information service managers, educators and researchers in many health settings. It introduces influences on good practice in health library and information services in the era of digital health. These influences include health informatics, digital health literacy, health research data management, trends in biomedical publishing, and the proliferation of information available in electronic formats, in bibliographic databases and on the Internet.
This subject offers an overview of the demand for information services in the health sciences and healthcare environment, and the diverse health information resources used by researchers, care providers, administrators, patients and members of the public. It gives guidelines for working with medical search terminology, explores the landscape of biomedical literature and provides insights into the significance of evidence-based practice.
This subject runs in partnership with Health Libraries Australia, for new and aspiring health librarians, and is recommended for Australian Library and Information Association members to specialise in this field.
This subject has four major topics and assessable activities:
1. Understanding the Australian healthcare environment, and the related information needs of health information service users. Students conduct a structured interview with a practicing health librarian, health information service manager, or consultant.
2. Navigating major health information producers and products, including availability of and access to resources, planning health information searches and summarising search results. Students prepare a report on analysing a realistic client information need and resolving it using these resources.
3. Becoming an evidence-based practice specialist in the healthcare environment, including applying EBP to continuous quality improvement in a range of healthcare contexts. Students undertake critical appraisal of two research articles relevant to a specific scenario concerning safety and quality of care.
4. Using health knowledge management technologies - e.g. for learning management, research data management, business intelligence and decision-making - including principles and practical considerations for their selection, implementation and evaluation. Students produce a desk assessment of a currently available digital health knowledge management product or service.