Course schedule for the Health Informatics Online Master's Program, Northwestern University School of Professional Studies - Northwestern School of Professional Studies

Program Courses

Please note that course schedules may be amended due to low enrollment, faculty availability, and/or other factors.

Online Sync Sessions are an integral part of the online learning experience. Additional information about learning concepts and assignments may be discussed and sync sessions offer valuable opportunities for students to interact with their faculty and peers during the term. We encourage all students to attend live, but if they are unable to, sync sessions will be recorded and posted within Canvas to allow for an asynchronous model of success as well.

MSHA 480-DL : Health Analytics Leadership

Description

This course is designed as an introduction to health analytics leadership practice, high level project management, customer engagement, and effective communication in health care organizations. Healthcare has seen a tremendous increase in available data in the past decade; however much of it is siloed and very difficult to piece together. Physicians and leaders struggle with reliability and transparency of data. Managers struggle to get the data they need to make informed decisions.

Students in analytics-based roles and disciplines will learn organizational strategies for developing and executing a robust Business Intelligence vision and strategic plan. Health care organizations with a strong business intelligence platform enable clinical and business decision making and improve the efficiency of the overall data delivery system.

Leadership strategies including data governance fundamentals, elements of the Business Intelligence (BI) maturity model, and key practices to improve organizational data literacy will be examined. Students will also learn methods to effectively lead projects and engage both leadership and key stakeholders using change management principles, models, and project management tools. Before analytic tasks are undertaken, change management ensures an organizational culture that will support a successful data analytics strategy. Project and portfolio management tools will ensure effective execution of the strategy.

This course introduces best practices in leading change and project management, including: stakeholder engagement, project chartering, scope definition, and key metric development. Students will use these methods and models to demonstrate their understanding and ability to improve project definition and structure. Students should able to execute projects more effectively in their organizations.

The course will also focus on developing effective communication and presentation skills to translate analytics to actionable recommendations that can be used to solve problems in their organizations. Through case scenario exercises, students will deepen their ability to present data analyses and recommendations in a clear and concise manner, evaluate analyses others have done, and articulate the strengths and limitations of their analyses. Students will demonstrate success if they are able to connect and translate their analytics to purpose, process, and people.

Students will examine and analyze current literature and case studies, compare and contrast BI best practices in health care organizations, and demonstrate their learning through assignments, exercises, discussions, and a course project. Students will deepen their ability to develop and deploy a robust BI platform in their health care organization.

If you do not have experience working in the American Healthcare system, it is highly recommend you take MSHA 403 American Healthcare, Digital Health and Analyics prior to taking MSHA 480 Health Analytics Leadership.