Health Informatics As an ABET-CAC Accreditable IS Program

Home , Medical (constituency)

Information Systems Education Journal (ISEDJ) 10 (6) December 2012

Health Informatics as an ABET-CAC Accreditable IS Program

Jeffrey P. Landry [email protected]

Roy J. Daigle [email protected]

Harold Pardue [email protected]

Herbert E. Longenecker, Jr. [email protected]

S. Matt Campbell [email protected]

School of CIS University of South Alabama Mobile, AL 36688 USA

Abstract

This paper builds on prior work defending innovative information systems programs as ABET- accreditable. A proposal for a four-year degree program in health informatics, initiated at the authors’ university to combat enrollment declines and to therefore help information systems to survive and thrive, is described. The program proposal is then evaluated against ABET-CAC criteria for information systems degree programs. The results of the evaluation were used to refine the authors’ program proposal and provide further evidence of the defensibility of innovative IS degree programs as ABET-accreditable.

Keywords: ABET, accreditation, Computing, Health Informatics

1. HEALTH INFORMATICS AS CURRICULUM must choose among three separate, accredited INNOVATION degree programs: Information Systems (IS), Information Technology (IT), and Computer The co-authors of the paper are faculty Science (CS). An era of enrollment decline has members in an information systems (IS) seen the pipeline of majors reduce to a trickle, program at a computing school, the University of and intensify the competition among the three South Alabama School of Computer and competing programs. Information Sciences (SCIS), where students

While there has been a decline in computing HI: A New Pipeline enrollments, the need for computing professionals is still strong, especially in the With the HIT workforce needs as a justification, domain of healthcare. The growth in the need a multidisciplinary health informatics (HI) for health information technology (HIT) workers certificate program was designed and has been fueled by recent legislative actions implemented at South Alabama. The certificate taken by the United States (U.S.) government. program was the result of collaboration among In order to remedy the slow rate of adoption of faculty and deans of programs in information information technology by healthcare providers, systems, nursing, the allied health professions, the U.S. government enacted the Health and health care industry representatives. Information Technology for Economic and Initially, HI course enrollments drew from Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) as part of the students majoring in either health sciences or American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of IS. We quickly found that HI students, with only 2009. The HITECH Act encourages Medicaid and a computer literacy background, could grasp the Medicare providers to implement an electronic IS concepts; while the IS students, without health records (EHR) system and meet a set of clinical training or experience, could likewise meaningful use rules established by the pick up the healthcare context. Both sets of government by providing incentive payments students would adequately produce healthcare directly to providers. Medicare providers that systems analysis and design artifacts. that do not meet these requirements by 2015 will be penalized in their reimbursements by the Building upon the success of the certificate government. Currently, Medicaid providers face program, a full degree program in HI was no similar penalty (Lynn, 2011). proposed. The expansion of the certificate program to a major is designed to attract For many years the use of HIT has been limited, students in three groups: those interested in a and the need for technology workers who niche healthcare profession; those whose understand health care has been met by application for health science programs were traditional technology graduates learning on the declined because of program enrollment limits; job. However, the passage of the HITECH Act and those attracted to the computing first but has caused demand for such workers to far with a secondary interest in health care. outstrip the ability of healthcare organizations to Through the allied health/nursing pipeline, the supply these retooled workers. Leading up to program promises to attract more female 2015, there is a projected need for between students to high tech careers, as well. 30,000 and 50,000 skilled HIT workers. These numbers are based on estimates by the ONC, The development of a health informatics (HI) Bureau of Labor Statistics, and HIMSS degree program as an information systems (http://www.himss.org/Content/Files/CSC_US_H program, while addressing a workforce need, ealthcare_Workforce_Shortages_HIT.pdf). both nationally and locally, is also seen as a Providers need a workforce that is able to “hit strategy for the survival and growth of IS the ground running” in the healthcare setting. academic programs. By tapping into another market, i.e. another source of students, the HI It is no longer sufficient for colleges and degree program is a means for IS survival. universities to produce students who have Rather than competing within a computing knowledge of only the traditional business school with a strategy of differentiation, the environment since, as Hersh (2010) notes “a faculty in the IS program is expanding into new well-trained HIT professional should have markets with its new product, the health knowledge not only of information technology, informatics degree program. The program is will but also of health care, business and be interdisciplinary— program delivery will be a management, and other disciplines.” To meet collaborative effort of faculty from three the needs of the healthcare industry, it is academic units: the School of Computer and necessary to create a new curriculum that Information Systems, the College of Nursing, produces outcomes expected of a traditional and the College of Allied Health Professionals. information systems graduate, along with The program will be administered by a healthcare clinical environment training needed curriculum chair who will oversee all aspects of to understand the deployment and use of HIT in the program. The program is expected to enroll a modern healthcare organization (Longenecker between 30-100 students per year. et al., 2011; Campbell, et al., 2011).

This paper is one of three papers on the our current accreditation can be leveraged, we proposed HI degree program appearing in the will model the processes for continuous ISECON 2011 proceedings. The Campbell et al. improvement for the health informatics program (2011) paper provides the background of the according to the current processes in our program and its interdisciplinary design details, existing IS program. The authors’ school already including curriculum areas. The purpose of this has the processes, polices, and procedures for paper is to describe our efforts to define the HI monitoring student performance and progress, program as an IS-accreditable degree program. advising and career guidance, admission and As IS faculty experienced with ABET transfer credit, and for documenting that accreditation, we argue that health informatics is graduates meet program requirements. Since accreditable as an innovative IS program. For the curriculum is composed of existing courses an analysis of the HI curriculum against model taught by IS faculty in facilities already vetted curricula in IS and HI, see Longenecker et al. by the accreditation of the IS program, and (2011). since the program is a collaboration of deans of accredited programs, we expect the same 2. APPLYING ABET CRITERIA TO THE assessment of faculty, facilities, and institutional HEALTH INFORMATICS DEGREE support criteria for the health informatics program as for the existing IS program. The Prior work (Wood et al., 2010) has remaining three areas, program educational demonstrated that an innovative IS program can objectives, student outcomes, and curriculum, be argued to be an ABET-accreditable IS provide the newest and most challenging issues. program, that is, meeting the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc. Program Educational Objectives (ABET, Inc.) Computing Accreditation Commission’s (CAC) criteria for accrediting Program educational objectives are “broad computing programs, including the ABET-CAC statements that describe what graduates are general and IS program-specific criteria. In the expected to attain within a few years of prior work, a cyber forensics and security graduation” and that should be “based on the program was argued to be accreditable as an IS needs of the program’s constituencies.” For the program. The authors defended the need for health informatics program to be ABET- such professionals and illustrated how program accreditable, constituents of the program must and course outcomes could be mapped into the be identified, and program objectives written ABET-CAC program outcomes criteria for that are consistent with their needs. information systems programs (ABET-CAC, 2010). This paper builds upon the prior The health informatics program has the following approach to demonstrate that our health constituencies, and their representatives. See informatics program, likewise, is accreditable as Table 1. an IS program. We will address not only the program outcomes issues, but other key After first engaging representatives of the local accreditation issues that apply to our situation. employers, consulting government healthcare IT workforce reports, establishing internships Critical Accreditation Issues where our IS graduates worked in healthcare/clinical settings, and consulting the Because the authors already have participated in IS 2010 model curriculum (Topi et al., 2010), we the ABET-CAC accreditation process for our developed the following broad statements, current undergraduate computing programs, adapted from Campbell et al. (2011): portions of the ABET requirements will be less Within a few years of graduation, graduates of challenging to meet. ABET requirements are the health informatics program should be able broken into eight general criteria, with additional to… IS-program-specific criteria specified in some of 1. use information technologies in the the general areas. The eight general areas are healthcare/clinical setting to improve the students, program educational objectives, performance of healthcare providers student outcomes, continuous improvement, 2. use information technologies in the curriculum, faculty, facilities, and institutional healthcare/clinical setting to improve support. The IS-specific criteria are in three health care outcomes and reduce areas: student outcomes, curriculum, and healthcare costs faculty. Assuming our experience with achieving

3. use information technologies in the In constructing an HI curriculum, we conceived healthcare/clinical setting to improve of the HI program as an IS program with a patient safety (reduce medical errors) healthcare environment. See Curriculum, below. 4. establish a professional career in the As such, a combination of courses in the existing healthcare/clinical IT workforce IS program, along with courses in the health sciences and business, were considered to make Table 1 - HI Program Constituencies up the degree. We also explicitly considered the ABET general and IS program student outcomes Constituency Representatives criteria (ABET-CAC, p. 3), commonly referred to Local employers a university hospital and as the “a through j”, which must be local EMR vendor demonstrated to be enabled, in formulating National government-defined these student outcomes, referenced from employers health IT roles and the Campbell et al., (2011): The program must IS 2010 model enable students to attain, by the time of curriculum graduation, the ability to perform… Alumni IS graduates working for local employers x Analysis: evaluate process workflows, (eventually, HI perform process workflow redesign through graduates working for user requirements analysis, and participate local employers) in implementation of redesigned process Faculty IS/health informatics workflows faculty x Evaluation: assist in vendor and software selection, evaluate technology/software/ These programs collectively have been defined system alternatives, and assist in network to meet constituency needs. Objective 1 has planning and needs assessment been crafted in a way that builds on the x Management: manage implementation McNurlin and Sprague (2006) IS theme of project plans, act as liaison among improving the performance of people in healthcare providers, IT staff, and systems organizations, but applied to a healthcare vendors, and communicate existing and context. It therefore provides a mission for IS emerging trends to healthcare providers and faculty and alumni familiar with the theme and IT staff its implications. Objectives 2 and 3 are closely x Data management: manage healthcare data aligned with the spirit of the government’s and record structures, work with IT staff to national HIT vision, such as meaningful use. ensure documentation/security/privacy Both 2 and 3 serve the needs of local employers requirements for medical records, and bound to creating meaningful use of health analyze and present data for healthcare information technology. The focus on patient decision making such as evidence-based safety in Outcome 3 encompasses the ethical practice components of the program, including patient x Assessment: apply a working knowledge of privacy. Finally, objective 4 is written to biostatistics and epidemiology to assess address the career needs of HI graduates. healthcare outcomes and risks

Student Outcomes A mapping of the student outcomes to the ABET student outcomes criteria is shown in Appendix Similar to program educational objectives, the 1. student outcomes are broad statements of what students must be able to know or do, except Critical Curriculum Issues that it is “by the time of graduation” rather than a few years out. As such, these broad The general and IS program curriculum area statements reflect more of what the curriculum provided five critical issues: is producing, and less of what government, ● covering the fundamentals of a modern industry, and alumni need later on. They must, programming language of course, relate back to the constituency needs ● providing fundamental coverage of the five as expressed in the program educational core areas objectives. ● providing advanced coverage that builds on the core

● covering mathematics beyond the pre- language. In the coverage of SQL in our first calculus level data management course, students learn to ● providing for an IS environment write both data definition language (DDL) and data manipulation language (DML) queries in Each of these issues are covered in the following SQL. In the latter area, students learn all four sub-sections and summarized in Table 2. create/read/update/delete (CRUD) operations; how to wrap a query inside of a stored Programming Language procedure; and how to create triggers for event- driven actions. Through coverage of SQL, we are We are proposing an innovative, yet potentially training students in 4GL data definition and controversial, position regarding the modern manipulation, solving problems comparable in programming language requirement for health complexity to those solved by 3GLs. We assert informatics. ABET requires “coverage of the that this depth of coverage in problem-solving fundamentals of a modern programming with SQL meets the modern programming language” (ABET-CAC, p. 6). To meet the language requirement. modern programming language requirement, many schools and ABET evaluators might require Core Area Coverage a traditional programming course, taught in an object-oriented, standalone programming ABET also requires coverage of “data language, such as C++, Java, or Visual Basic. management, networking and data Requiring such a course would likely meet with communications, systems analysis and design resistance from faculty, however, who would and the role of Information Systems in find the course inappropriate for the major. The organizations” and “advanced course work that chosen professional focus of the HI program is builds on the fundamental course work to not on the application developer role, for which provide depth” (ABET-CAC, 2010, p. 6). We programming fundamentals are critical. Instead, propose that the health informatics program we are focusing on roles such as health meets this requirement, as well as the information management exchange specialist aforementioned modern programming language (Hersh, 2010, p. 201) and the program’s requirement. See Appendix 2 for a summary. mission “to work closely with primary healthcare providers to select an appropriate vendor Advanced Coverage solution for electronic medical/health records (EMR/HER), integrate that solution into existing ABET requires “advanced course work that builds processes, policies, and technologies, and to on the fundamental course work to provide utilize that solution to deliver ‘meaningful use’ depth.” The following courses build upon the that results in better medical and health foundation courses, providing advanced outcomes“(Pardue, 2009). Application coverage. development has been removed as a prescribed core from the IS 2010 model curriculum (Topi et x ISC 450 Health Information Systems Analysis al., 2010, p. 27) underscoring that not all IS and Design professional roles require application x ISC 455 Health Decision Support Systems development skill. Recognizing that traditional x ISC 462 Information Systems Strategy and programming skills is not required by HI Policy professional roles, we are targeting, and x ISC 475 Information Systems Project receiving the support of the IS 2010 model Management curriculum, we decided not to require a x CIS 496 Computer and Information Sciences traditional standalone programming language Internship course. The ISC 450 course builds upon the In satisfying the fundamentals of a modern fundamentals of health informatics covered in programming language requirement of ABET, we ISC 300 and ISC 410 to provide critical coverage chose to use coverage of the structured query of systems analysis and design skills applied to language (SQL) taught in the first data the healthcare context. However, the course management course. Although it has been significantly extends the scope of systems to the around for a long time, SQL is as relevant as enterprise environment, and utilizes product ever, and meets the criterion of “modern.” It is automation to implement developed workflows. classified as a fourth generation programming

This includes screen and reports design and A broader interpretation of mathematics implementation. “appropriate to the discipline” is supported by statements in two relevant curriculum The ISC 455 is a combination of modern guidelines. Under a discussion of “mathematical programming language and data management. foundations” as one of five foundational ISC 455 focuses on “the design and knowledge and skill areas, the IS 2010 model management of electronic medical record recommends that “to support in-depth analysis systems and clinical decision support systems” of data, IS professionals should have a strong including technical and management issues and background in statistics and probability. For tools for “extracting information from medical those who are interested in building a strong data”. This course builds on the fundamentals skill set in algorithmic thinking, discrete of health informatics covered in ISC 300 and mathematics is important” (Topi et al., p. 22). 410, as well as the practical experiences in ISC The IMIA, in its curriculum guidelines for 450. educating the biomedical health informatics (BMHI) professional, lists “mathematics” as a Both ISC 462 and ISC 475 provide advanced knowledge/skill domain area, comprised of coverage that builds on prior course work. “algebra, analysis, logic, numerical mathematics, These courses cover information strategy and probability theory and statistics, cryptography” policy issues and project management in the IT (Mantas et al., 2010, p. 113). context, respectively. We believe that statistics satisfies the All health informatics students will be required to foundational quantitative analysis skills complete a relevant internship in their last requirement of HI professionals. In fact, ABET semester: CIS 496. The internship duties will also requires, for IS graduates, that curricula possibly draw upon the entire curriculum and all cover “quantitative analysis or methods core areas. It will enable students to make a including statistics.” Taking both the more significant immediate contribution when mathematics and quantitative analysis they enter the HIT workforce. requirements into account, assuming a broad definition of “mathematics,” and following the Together, seven courses are identified as guidelines in IS 2010 and IMIA, we believe that providing fundamentals coverage and the five requiring two courses in statistics or quantitative courses providing advanced coverage make up methods/analysis to be the discipline- 36 credit hours, equivalent to the one year of appropriate preparation for HI. To be compliant curriculum coverage of IS areas required by with ABET, the first statistics course must be ABET. built on a foundation of pre-calculus algebra. A second, more advanced statistics or quantitative Math Coverage methods course that covers mathematic beyond pre-calculus is also required. Another curriculum requirement is the ABET-CAC general criteria requirement for coverage of IS Environment “mathematics appropriate to the discipline beyond the pre-calculus level”. In satisfying this The IS environment is a requirement that the requirement, we make the assumption that curriculum include “one-half year of course work “mathematics” does not mean, literally, that the that must include varied topics that provide course has to have “math” in the title, i.e. background in an environment in which the offered by the mathematics department. For information systems will be applied ABET, it is the course content that is important— professionally.” An environment does not and if it is taught by mathematics faculty or not. cannot constitute a single, focused knowledge Thus a course that covers the topics of discrete area such as applications in mathematics, art, mathematics may be defended by a computer technology, law, statistics, or desktop science program as satisfying the discrete publishing. Instead, an environment represents mathematics requirement although it is in the an ecosystem in which information systems are catalog as a computer science course. Likewise a employed. The environment surrounds and quantitative methods or quantitative analysis impacts the systems and technologies that course that covers mathematics topics beyond support it and whose inputs, processes or pre-calculus can be defended as satisfying ABET- outputs are closely intertwined with their CAC’s general criteria mathematics requirement. information systems. As we are conceiving the

health informatics degree as IS applied in a details of the clinical environment are described healthcare context, we are defining our IS in Longenecker et al. (2011). environment as 22 credit hours of courses in the health sciences, which collectively are viewed as 3. CONCLUSIONS an ecosystem of healthcare. We expect most of our HI majors to migrate from programs in In summary, we have shown that a health nursing and the allied health professions. This informatics degree program is defendable as an implies that they will have a background by the ABET-accreditable IS program. We have junior year of biomedical sciences course identified an ecosystem of healthcare as an IS involving a year in human physiology and environment. We have identified program anatomy. In their pre-professional studies we objectives and outcomes that meet local and will request that they add courses in accounting national constituency needs. We have defended and management principles. At the junior and an approach to meeting the modern senior level, what is important for HI majors is programming language requirement without to have developed a broad awareness of the preparing the majors as application developers, breadth and complexity of the healthcare per se. And, we have presented a proposed environment. We call this the HI clinical curriculum that meets the required core areas of environment. coverage and has the required depth of coverage. For a computing school with an Table 2 - Critical Curriculum Issues established, accredited IS program, these are the most challenging accreditation issues, in our Issue Response view. Programming SQL for DDL and language DML appropriate for We must point out two important limitations to the HI professional our claim that the health informatics program experience described in this paper is ABET-accreditable as Core Areas 12 courses cover an IS program. The first limitation is that the core areas health informatics program has not yet been Advanced Coverage Five senior-level implemented. However, most if not all of the courses; one as an courses have been, a health informatics internship certificate program is currently in place, and the Math Coverage Two statistics authors’ have taught in an accredited IS courses program for several years. The second IS Environment Healthcare limitation is that our claim is just that, our own Ecosystem of 22 defense of the program against published ABET hours of health accreditation criteria, written in the spirit of a science courses self-study. The approval of this defense would be up to the scrutiny of program evaluators in a Therefore, we recommend that the students future ABET review. take preliminary coursework from nursing, clinical pharmacology, radiology, occupational With our IS accreditation, however, we can use and physical therapy, and cardiorespiratory this experience as a basis on which to compare therapy issues. To be sure, different universities our approach towards accrediting the proposed will have access to a variety of different courses. HI program. We believe the approach taken Our course selection forms an ecosystem which with program objectives and outcomes is provides a rich student exposure to healthcare. consistent with the approach used with past, The importance of the clinical environment is to accredited programs. We believe that our prepare students for the upper division health approach to defining core and advanced areas of informatics courses that require students to use coverage is similar to what we have done for their knowledge of the healthcare domain. With accrediting our information systems (IS) a foundation in the clinical environment, program, with the notable exception of the students can begin to understand the issues modern programming language requirement. surrounding EMR/EHR integration and apply The approach taken with math is also different, analysis, data management, evaluation, in that our school has required one calculus (or assessment, and management skills towards discrete math) and two statistics courses in the delivering HIT solutions that provide meaningful past. Our elimination of calculus is a departure. use and positive health care outcomes. The A 15 hour business environment required for IS,

justified for its preparing students in the program under review. Because the goals of the organizational context, is similar to our approach HI program are to prepare HI professionals who in requiring the 22 hours of clinical environment do not require the traditional programming for HI. We believe the riskiest areas for skills, we believe our position, that coverage of accreditation to be defending the modern SQL in the database course is sufficient to meet programming language requirement. the modern programming language requirement, is defensible. Taking ABET-CAC program requirements into account early, in the proposal stage of the HI A third issue regarding the clinical environment program, in fact, proved valuable. Familiarity arose from feedback from reviewers and with ABET requirements drove us to identify colleagues at ISECON/CONISAR 2011, and constituents early and identify outcomes to meet colleagues in the College of Nursing and College their needs. These outcomes, along with ABET of Allied Health Professions. We have began a curriculum requirements, were helpful in review of the proposed collection of clinical defining, refining and grouping courses. A environment courses to ensure that these poorly described “list of courses”, as one faculty courses satisfied the breadth-first overview member described an early HI curriculum expected of an IS Environment in an Information proposal, became an organized, mission- Systems curriculum. mapped, well-understood, and defensible program of study. We recommend that other 5. REFERENCES faculty considering an HI degree program follow our example by adopting and considering the ABET Computing Accreditation Commission - spirit of the ABET-CAC approach early, along ABET CAC (2010). Criteria for Accrediting with the IS model curriculum and health Computing Programs. ABET, Inc. October informatics program guidelines (Longenecker et 2010, Baltimore, Maryland. al., 2011). Campbell, S. M., Pardue, J. H., Longenecker, H. 4. EPILOGUE: ISECON/CONISAR 2011 E. Jr., Barnett, H. L., and Landry, J. P. (2011). Treating the healthcare workforce Interaction with colleagues while at crisis: a prescription for a health informatics ISECON/CONISAR 2011 has resulted in three curriculum. Information Systems Education issues for consideration. One issue is whether or Conference, ISECON 2011. not to omit the ISC 360 Systems Analysis and Design course. Arguably, each of ISC 360 Hersh, W. (2010). The health information Information Systems Analysis and Design and technology workforce: Estimations of ISC 450 Health Systems Analysis and Design demand and a framework for requirements. apply the same theoretical foundations to Applied Clinical Informatics, 1(2), 197-212. different, but similar application domains, and so Retrieved July 12, 2011, from requiring both is redundant. However, there is http://dx.doi.org/10.4338/ACI-2009-11-R- concern that some fundamentals concepts and 001. experiences may be missed if the ISC 360 is omitted. A final decision has not been made. Longenecker, H. E., Campbell, S. M., Landry, J. P., Pardue, J. H., and Daigle, R. J. (2011). A A second issue revolves around our argument health informatics curriculum compatible that coverage of SQL in the database course was with IS 2010 and IMIA recommendations for sufficient to meet the modern programming an undergraduate degree. Information language requirement. While most feedback Systems Education Conference, ISECON was supportive, one reviewer cautioned that 2011. ABET might expect students to be taking a course using a standalone, object-oriented, Lynn (2011). Meaningful use Mondays – programming language. Additionally, support for Medicare vs. Medicaid penalties and other our position was specifically limited to our health differences. EMR and HIPAA. Retrieved July informatics program, and not to all types of IS 13, 2011 from programs. We are moving towards the position http://www.emrandhipaa.com/lynn/2011/01 that the strength of one's case for meeting the /17/meaningful-use-mondays-medicare-vs- ABET modern programming language medicaid-penalties-and-other-differences/ requirement depends on the goals of the

Mantas, J., Ammenwerth, E., Demiris, G., Hasman, A., Haux, R., Hersh, W., Hovenga, Topi. H., Valacich, J. S., Wright, R. T., Kaiser, E., Lun, K.C., Marin, H., Martin-Sanchez, F., K., Nunamaker, J. F., Sipior, J. C., & de and Wright, G. (2010). Recommendations of Vreede, G. J. (2010). IS 2010: Curriculum the International Medical Informatics Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Association (IMIA) on education in Programs in Information Systems. biomedical and health informatics. Methods Association for Computing Machinery and of Information in Medicine, 49(2), 105-120. Association for Information Systems. Retrieved July 12, 2011, from http://www.acm.org/education/curricula/IS http://dx.doi.org/10.3414/ME5119. %202010%20ACM%20final.pdf, 15-22.

McNurlin, B. C. & Sprague, R. H. Jr. (2006). Wood, D. F., Kohun, F. G., Ali, A., Paulett, K., Information Systems Management in and Davis, G. A (2010). Cyber Forensics and Practice, Seventh Edition, Pearson Prentice Security as an ABET-CAC Accreditable Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Program. Information Systems Education Journal, 8 (60). http://isedj.org/8/60/. Pardue, J. H. (2009). REC grant narrative and ISSN: 1545-679X. (A preliminary version SCIS curriculum. School of CIS internal appears in The Proceedings of ISECON document. October 10, 2009. University of 2009: §2355. ISSN: 1542-7382.) South Alabama, Mobile, AL.

Appendices

Appendix 1 - Mapping of Health Informatics Student Outcomes to ABET Student Outcomes Criteria to Courses

Health Informatics Student ABET Student Outcomes Criteria Courses Outcomes Analysis - evaluate process b-An ability to analyze a problem, ISC 300 Health Informatics workflows, perform process and identify and define the Clinical Environment workflow redesign through user computing requirements appropriate ISC 360 Information Systems requirements analysis, and to its solution Analysis and Design participate in implementation c-An ability to design, implement, ISC 450 Health Sys Analysis and of redesigned process and evaluate a computer-based Design workflows system, process, component, or program to meet desired needs j- An understanding of processes that support the delivery and management of information systems within a specific application environment. Evaluation - assist in vendor b-An ability to analyze a problem, ISC 245 Information Systems in and software selection, and identify and define the Organizations evaluate computing requirements appropriate ISC 272 Systems Architecture technology/software/system to its solution CIS 321 Data Communications alternatives, and assist in c-An ability to design, implement, and Networking network planning and needs and evaluate a computer-based ISC 450 Health Sys Analysis and assessment system, process, component, or Design program to meet desired needs MGT 325 Operations i-An ability to use current Management techniques, skills, and tools necessary for computing practice. j- An understanding of processes that support the delivery and management of information systems within a specific application environment. Management - manage d-An ability to function effectively on ACC 211 Principles of Accounting implementation project plans, teams to accomplish a common goal I act as liaison among healthcare f-An ability to communicate MGT 300 Management Theory providers, IT staff, and systems effectively with a range of audiences and Practice vendors, and communicate h-Recognition of the need for and an ISC 300 Health Informatics existing and emerging trends ability to engage in continuing Clinical Environment to healthcare providers and IT professional development ISC 410 Health Informatics staff i-An ability to use current ISC 475 Information Systems techniques, skills, and tools Project Management necessary for computing practice. CA 110 Public Speaking j- An understanding of processes CA 275 Small Group that support the delivery and Communication management of information systems within a specific application environment. Data management - manage b-An ability to analyze a problem, CIS 324 Database Design, healthcare data and record and identify and define the Development, and Management structures, work with IT staff to computing requirements appropriate ISC 410 Health Informatics ensure to its solution ISC 455 Health Decision Support documentation/security/privacy c-An ability to design, implement, Sys requirements for medical and evaluate a computer-based ISC 462 Information Systems records, and analyze and system, process, component, or Strategy and Policy present data for healthcare program to meet desired needs decision making such as e-An understanding of professional, evidence-based practice ethical, legal, security and social

issues and responsibilities g-An ability to analyze the local and global impact of computing on individuals, organizations, and society j- An understanding of processes that support the delivery and management of information systems within a specific application environment. Assessment - apply a working a-An ability to apply knowledge of BUS 245 Applied Business knowledge of biostatistics and computing and mathematics Statistics I epidemiology to assess appropriate to the discipline BUS 255 Applied Business healthcare outcomes and risks j- An understanding of processes Statistics II that support the delivery and BMD 210 Infectious Disease in management of information systems Health Care Environments within a specific application ISC 455 Health Decision Support environment. Systems

Appendix 2 - Health Informatics Core Area Coverage

Course Core Area(s) Covered Advanced, builds on…

ISC 245 Information Systems in Role of information systems in n/a Organizations organizations

ISC 272 System Architecture Networking and data n/a communications

ISC 300 Health Informatics Clinical Role of information systems in n/a Environment organizations

CIS 321 Data Communications and Networking and data n/a Networking communications

CIS 324 Database Design Modern programming language n/a Development and Management Data management

ISC 360 Systems Analysis and Systems analysis and design n/a Design

ISC 410 Health Informatics Role of information systems in n/a organizations

ISC 450 Health Information Systems analysis and design 300, 410 Systems Analysis and Design

ISC 455 Health Decision Support Modern programming language 300, 410 Systems Data management

ISC 462 Information Systems Role of information systems in 245, 272, 321, Strategy and Policy organizations 324

ISC 475 Information Systems Role of information systems in 245, 272, 321, Project Management organizations 324

CIS 496 Computer and Information All areas Entire curriculum Sciences Internship