HEALTH INFORMATION AND DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

HPA 465 Summer 2014 SEMESTER

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HEALTH INFORMATION AND DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
HPA 465 Summer 2014 SEMESTER
SYLLABUS

Instructor
Prof. Edward Mensah, PhD
Email: dehasnem@uic.edu

Dr. Asif Syed: American
Medical Association

Email: asyed2@uic.edu
TA

Onyinyechi Enyia
Email: oenyia@uic.edu




Recent health reform initiatives have increased the need for informed decision making by
consumers, public health administrators, community leaders, providers, insurers and
governments. The effectiveness of public health practitioners and researchers depends, among
other factors, on the availability of well-designed information systems as well as timely and
reliable information. Public health administrators need to have a working knowledge of the
functionalities of existing public health information systems and the management of
Information Technology resources. This course introduces students to the role of information
systems in public health practice, information technology personnel and change management,
privacy and confidentiality issues in development and utilization of information systems.

Learning Objectives:

After completing the course students will be able to:
1. Discuss in details the structure and functions of computer hardware, software,
networking and operating systems.
2. Apply the concepts of General Systems Theory to the design and development of public
health information systems.
3. Analyze the role of public health information systems and informatics in decision-
making.
4. Evaluate the impact of Electronic Medical Records technologies and Health Information
Exchange on public health practice. Explore the security, privacy and confidentiality
issues involved in utilizing health data and information systems.
5. Evaluate the determinants of success/failure of investments in information systems.
6. Discuss (using change management principles) the policy and managerial issues
resulting from the introduction of information systems into healthcare agencies.
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7. Identify the key characteristics of decision support systems and formulate a public
health decision support framework.
8. Learn about the different types of health information systems such as executive
information systems, and clinical decision support system.
9. Evaluate the impact of HIPAA on the development and utilization of health information
systems.
10. Employ social network technology, Wikipedia, in addressing public health problems.



Learning Environment:
This class relies completely on asynchronous interactions using the Blackboard Course Info
environment.



Attendance:
Students are expected to participate frequently in the discussions. Log in on the blackboard
course site at least 3 days each week. An absence does not excuse any student from
participating in discussions and submitting the assigned work.

Participation implies meaningful interactions with your colleagues. Always respect the opinions
of your colleagues. Credit does not accrue merely for logging in and reading your colleagues'
responses. The quality of your discussions will significantly influence your grades. In addition,
there will be several webinars throughout the semester. You will be notified prior to each
webinar, and attendance is mandatory. Please email the TA if you are unable to attend the live
webinar, so that you can view the webinar at an alternative time in order to receive credit.



Course Organization & Assignments:
Students will usually work in small groups in order to answer questions posted to their group
discussion boards, and to work on the case studies and other assignments. Occasionally, they
will all work together in order to address the issues raised in other groups' responses. All
students will be responsible for initiating team communications, playing significant roles in the
decision-making process and presenting the group's responses to the assignments. All students
will play leadership roles during the session.

Late assignments are not encouraged.

Assignments will be posted under the READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS button each Saturday by
06:00 AM. Case studies will take 2 weeks to complete from the date of assignment. Please check
the syllabus and readings and assignments regularly. Other assignments will be allotted 1 week
for completion, and must be submitted no later than following Sunday by 11:55 PM United
States Central Standard Time. I will occasionally be available to facilitate the discussions but not
to lecture the students. We will respond to your comments within 24 hours. There will be a total
of 3 case studies assigned in this course, and regular group assignments towards the latter
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weeks of the course. Check reading and assignments frequently to remain up to date on
assignments, case studies, and due dates.

QUIZZES
There will be a total of 8 short weekly quizzes. Each quiz will open on Thursday, and you will
have until Sunday at 11:55pm to complete the quiz. You will have only 1 attempt to complete
each quiz, and feedback will be provided instantaneously after completion.

MID TERM
Your midterm will consist of a series of multiple choice and true/false questions, and will cover
all materials covered up to and including the week of the midterm.

FINAL PROJECT
You will have a final project, which will be a collaborative effort with your group. A hardcopy of
the project should be submitted for grading.


FINAL EXAM
Your final exam will consist of a series of multiple choice and true/false questions, and will cover
all materials covered in the course.


This is an active learning experience and students are expected to discuss the issues raised
in the assignments among themselves in order to arrive at consensus. Group assignments
and the final project will be carried out via Wiki tool. Those who are not familiar with the
Wiki tool should refer for more information to page 8 of the course syllabus. If there are
any questions between group members, they can use the group discussion board to resolve
any issues.

Remember to always insert HPA465SU14 in the subject field of your Email messages. This
will guarantee that your messages are not mixed up with the junk mails I receive each
week. Also, please list the names of your group members on ALL group assignments
submitted.

Grading Criteria:
Grades will depend on the quality of participation on the Wiki site, weekly discussions on
the general discussion board, case studies, assignments, mid-term, quizzes, final
examination, and final project. You are encouraged to use email, telephone, yahoo
messenger, or Skype or google drive to communicate amongst yourselves. However,
these communications will not count towards your grade.






HEALTH INFORMATION AND DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
HPA 465 Summer 2014 SEMESTER
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Category Percent of Grade
Case Studies, Group Assignments and Discussion 35%
Midterm Examination 20%
Group Evaluation 5%
Webinar attendance 5%
Final Examination 20%
Final Project 15%

Letter
Grades:
90% -
100% = A
80% - 89% = B
70% - 79% = C
60% - 69% = D
Less that 60% = F



Required Textbook:
Public Health Informatics and Information Systems, J.A> Magnuson, Paul C. Fru Published
by Springer-Verlag, London, 2014. This book is supplemented by recent articles.

While all required reading materials will be available on the course website under the
assignments forum, you can view the electronic copy of the required reference textbook by
clicking the link under the Required Reading: Book content area.

















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Syllabus in detail:

Week 1 (May 19 May 25):
Getting familiar with UIC Blackboard, Meet and Greet.
Fundamentals of Public Health Informatics I. Reading materials available online.
Reading Materials:
1. Magnuson, Fru, et.al. Public Health Informatics and Information Systems:
a. Chapter 1: Introduction to Public Health Informatics
b. Chapter 2: History and Significance of Information Systems and Public Health
c. Chapter 3: Context and value of Biomedical and Health Informatics


2. Core Content for Subspecialty of Clinical Informatics, REED M. GARDNER, PHD, J. MARC OVERHAGE,
MD, PHD, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association Volume 16 Number 2 March /
April 2009




Week 2 (May 27- June 1):
Fundamentals of Public Health Informatics II
Reading Materials:


1. Health IT and Patient Safety: Building Safer Systems for Better Care, Committee on Patient
Safety and Health Information Technology, Institute of Medicine, ISBN 978-0-309-22112-2 (
2011)



2. Magnuson, Fru, et.al. Public Health Informatics and Information Systems:
a. Chapter 5: Public Health Informatics Infrastructure
b. Chapter 6: Information Architecture



Week 3 (June 2 June 8):
Introductory to Online Library Tools and the Internet. Facilitators: Sandra De Groote & Kimberly
Pendell, UIC Health Sciences Library.
Facilitator: Jamie Dwyer
Reading materials available online.






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Week 4 (June 9 June 15):
Conceptual Foundations of Information Systems. The General Systems Theory.

Reading Materials:
1. Information Systems for Health Care Management. Chapter 5: HIT Governance and Decision Rights.
Gerald Glandon, Detlev H. Smaltz and Donna Slovensky. 8
th
Edition, Health Administration Press,
Chicago Illinois, 2014.
2. Practical Challenges of Systems Thinking and Modeling in Public Health. William M.
Trochim, PhD, Derek A. Cabrera, MA, Bobby Milstein, MPH, Richard S. Gallagher, BS, and
Scott J. Leischow, PhD. American Journal of Public Health, 2006.

Weeks 5 (June 16 June 22):
Enterprise Information Systems.
Reading materials available online.

1. Evolution of Public Health Information Systems: Enterprise-wide Approaches, Noam H. Artz, PhD
July 10, 2007
2. Developing an Enterprise view of Public Health Information Systems, by The Public Health
Informatics Institute, August, 2005
https://uic.blackboard.com/courses/1/2013.spring.hpa.465.1/content/_2991677_1/Developing%20
an%20Enterprise%20View%20of%20Public%20Health.pdf
3. Magnuson, Fru et.al. Chapter 14: Informatics in Disease Prevention and Epidemiology




Week 6 (June 23 June 29):
Electronic Medical Records and Data Standards in Public Health.
Facilitator: Dr. Asif Syed
Reading Materials:
1. Magnuson, Fru, et al.Chapter 7: Data Sources and Data Tools
2. Chapter 8: Public Health Information Standards
3. Chapter 10: Electronic Health Records
4. Davis, R., Morin, J., Bhatia, R. et. al. (2013). A system for surveillance directly from the
EMR. OJPHI. Volume 5 No 1.
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Week 7 (June 30 July 6):
Determinants of Success/Failure of Information Systems.
Reading materials:

1. Unintended Consequences of Information Technologies in Health Care - An Interactive
Sociotechnical Analysis Michael I. Harrison, PhD, Ross Koppel, PhD, and Shirly Bar-Lev, PhD, J Am
Med Inform Assoc. 2007;14:542549. DOI 10.1197/jamia.M2384.
2. Health IT Success and Failure: Recommendations from Literature and an AMIA Workshop BONNIE
KAPLAN, PHD, KIMBERLY D. HARRIS-SALAMONE, PHD, Journal of the American Medical Informatics
Association Volume 16 Number 3 May / June 2009 291
3. Understanding HMIS Implementation in a Developing Country Ministry of Health Context - An
Institutional Logics Perspective, The Online Journal of Public Health Informatics, Vol 4 (3), 2012 by
Ime Asangansi ,Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway

MIDTERM EXAMINATION AND RELEASE OF FINAL PROJECT INSTRUCTIONS

Week 8 (July 7 July 13)
Health Decision Support and Executive Information Systems I
Reading Materials:
1. Joseph Tan and Samuel Sheps. Health Decision Support Systems, Aspen Publications, 1998.
Chapter 2: Health Decision Support Systems and Executive Information Systems: Basic
Characteristics, Structure, and Operation.

2. Magnuson, Fru, et.al. Public Health Informatics and Information Systems, Chapter 23:
Decision Support and Expert Systems in Public Health:


3. Developing public health clinical decision support systems (CDSS) for the outpatient community
in New York City: our experience. Amirfar S, Taverna J, Anane S, Singer J. BMC Public Health.
2011 Sep 30;11:753. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-11-
753.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3198707/

4. Decision Support Models for Public Health Informatics, Zaruchi Mnatsakanyan and Joseph
Lombardo Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest 332 , Volume 27, Number 4 (2008)


Week 9 (July 14 July 20):
Computer Networking and Telecommunication Part
Facilitator: Ed Garay, Assistant Director for Academic Computing at UIC, Chicago
Reading materials available online





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Week 10 (July 21 July 27):
Health Information Exchange and
Electronic Medical Records.
Reading materials available online.

1. Magnuson and Fru Chapter 22: Public health informatics and health information exchange
2. Chapter 20: New Rules of Data Collection and Accessibilty
3. Evaluation of ILHIE Direct Market Penetration, The Center for Health Information
Management and Research, University of Illinois at Chicago, January 14, 2013
4. Health Information Exchange: Implementation, Interoperability, and Sustainability
State of Illinois Electronic Health Records Survey: Health Information Exchange
Working Group. March 8, 2010. Dr. Edward Mensah
5. Adler-Milstein, J. Jha, A.(2014). Health information exchange among U.S.
hospitals: whos in, whos out, and why? Healthcare. 12(005).
6. (OPTIONAL READING) Duncan, J., Xu W., Narus, S. et al. (2013). A Focus Area
Maturity Model for a Statewide Master Person Index. Online Journal of Public
Health Informatics. Volume 5 No 2.
Health Information Exchange Public Health Informatics Guest Lecture powerpoint


Week 11(July 28 August 3):
Information Systems Personnel and Change Management,
Systems Design and Development.
Facilitator: Kiran Kanakadandika
Reading Materials:

1. Change Management in Information Systems Development and Implementation Projects;
Management information Systems Vol.5 (2010), Number 2 By Zoran Ciric and Lazar Rakivic
http://www.ef.uns.ac.rs/mis/archive-pdf/2010%20-%20No2/2010_2_4.pdf

2. Magnuson, Fru, et.al. Chapter 12: Project Management in Public Health

3. Magnuson, Fru et al. Chapter 13: Evaluation for Public Health Informatics




WEEK 12: (August 4 August 8)
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Privacy, Security and
Confidentiality. Facilitator: Claire Dixon-Lee
Reading Materials:
1. Magnuson, Fru, et.al. Chapter 9: Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security of Public Health
Information
2. Magnuson, Fru, et.al. Chapter 11: Ethics, information technology, and public health:
duties and challenges in computational epidemiology.
3. Toward a National Framework for the Secondary Use of Health Data, by Charles Safran, MD, MS,
Meryl Bloomrosen, MBA, W. Edward Hammond, PhD
Final Examination and Final Projects Due August 8
th
, 11:55 PM


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HPA 465 Summer 2014 SEMESTER
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Announcements:
All important announcements are posted in this forum. Changes in assignments or problem
clarifications will be posted here for the attention of all students. Please access this forum
regularly.

Course Information:
Course descriptions and syllabus are posted here.

Readings and Assignments:
Weekly assignments, reading materials, quizzes, and surveys will be posted here. Obviously,
this is a very important link.

Communication:
There are 5 sublinks under COMMUNICATION. We shall use 4 of the 5 links. These are:

SEND E-MAIL
This link provides a convenient way of sending e-mails to your colleagues, instructors, and
teaching assistants.

COLLABORATION
You will find the chat and virtual class room facilities under this link to be very useful.

ROSTER
The current roster for the HPA 465 class is listed under this link.

GROUPS
Communication with your group members will be held under this forum.

DISCUSSION BOARD
The discussion board is where you will hold discussions that do not require that you belong to
specific groups. Everybody participates in such discussions.

WIKI Tool:


You will use the wiki tool for all group assignments. To start the Wiki writing process, click view
under your group's team site. Then one of the group members must click on Start editing your
page here and insert a title for the paper and post the content. Do not hit new in the side menu
bar to start a Wiki page. This will result in creating a new page and leave your home page
vacant. We want you to edit the home page itself and not create the new wiki page which will
eventually show as a link under the header. This will represent version #1 of the report. Imagine
the first version to be the first draft of a paper you are jointly writing.

The next version involves modifying the same page and MUST be an improvement on the first
draft. Read this first draft carefully and think of how to improve upon it. When you are ready to
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contribute, click edit (in the side menu bar), modify the content, and save. Feel free to use
other references to improve your contributions, and make sure you cite your sources. The
citations and references used will not be added to the final word count for the assignment. All
students should participate in the revision process. At the end of the period you would all have
collaboratively developed ONE document that addresses the group assignment.

Since, Wiki (Teams Site) keeps track of the history of the individual contributions (edits), I will
be able to grade the final document and assign grades using the inputs from each individual.
Grades will depend on how actively you participated in revising the documents and the
teamwork shown in creating a good report. That is, the number & quality of your individual
revisions and the overall quality of your report will influence your grade
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Since, in the Wiki homepage that you develop, it is difficult to check the page limit, it is advised that
you use any word Processor (MS Word) to check your page limit does not exceed. You will lose points
if you exceed the allocated limit. Wiki does not have formatting functions. In order to submit the final
work, you can edit the document in MS Word. If you have any questions, please contact us as soon as
possible!



Good-Luck!










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HEALTH INFORMATION AND DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS HPA 465 Spring 2014 SEMESTER