WVU School of Medicine announces new minor in healthcare data analytics

The Health Informatics and Information Management program in the West Virginia University School of Medicine announced a new undergraduate minor. The minor – healthcare data analytics – gives students an opportunity to understand the importance healthcare data plays in driving performance and improving patient outcomes.

Enrollment is now open for the Fall 2021 semester and the minor code is U189. The minor totals 15 credit hours, and all course prerequisites are waived for students in the minor.

Students seeking work in both clinical and non-clinical healthcare fields would benefit from the curriculum, which builds skills in leveraging the importance of data in operational decisions.

Job demand for this skillset is expected to grow, as a wide variety of growing positions in large healthcare organizations include responsibilities in analysis, interpretation and/or reporting of data.  This may include clinical, financial, operational and/or regulatory data.

Students in majors such as accounting, business, computer science, engineering, finance and public health may find the minor beneficial if exploring employment in a healthcare organization.

The coursework focuses on tools, practices and issues surrounding the use of data analytics in support of key decisions in healthcare organizations take improved quality, cost and care.

By completing the minor, students will:

• Explore the scope and role of data and data analytics in healthcare in the context of national quality policies.
• Identify and apply appropriate tools and techniques to analyze a given data set.
• Describe how data analytics can support key decisions in healthcare clinical, financial and operational settings.
• Develop appropriate metrics and processes to obtain data supporting key healthcare decisions.
• Debate ethical issues surrounding data privacy and security and use of secondary health data for analytics.

For more information about the minor, contact Sally Lucci at sally.lucci@hsc.wvu.edu or visit the program’s website at https://medicine.hsc.wvu.edu/hiim/.