A Curriculum for Graduate Education Programs in Health Administration
The Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA), in partnership with the Commission on Accreditation of Health Management Education (CAHME) and under initial major funding from HIMSS and additional financial support from Siemens, has hosted and directed the development of this curriculum for IT education in graduate programs in health administration.
This curriculum is designed to support design and delivery of a graduate level course in health information systems and technology at the graduate level. Programs and faculty have full discretion to use the entire HIMSTA curriculum as a
course, or to select modules or parts of modules for classroom use.
In the Health IT curriculum, eight knowledge domains, and related competencies, were delineated by the HIMSTA Task Force. After outlining the 14 modules and their general content, the Task Force requested and received feedback about the curriculum from numerous Graduate and Undergraduate program directors and faculty. That feedback helped to substantively influenced and shape the curriculum.
Curriculum Content
Each of the14 modules in the curriculum is designed for 9 to 10 hours of learning (including classroom sessions, if delivered in a face-to-face format) accompanied by readings, exercises, assessments, and other teaching tools. Each module includes at a minimum:
- One or more audio lectures with PowerPoints (10 to 20 minutes in length)
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An instructor’s manual
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A syllabus
Discussion and assessment questions may be included in the instructor’s manual or in a separate Word document. There is variance among the modules in other teaching tools that are included. These may include case studies, exercises, readings, and other tools, and may be found in the instructor’s manual or in separate documents. There are no discussion questions included in the audio lectures, so instructor’s may find it useful to stop the lectures at certain points in order to engage students in discussion.
This curriculum was designed to be highly interactive. The modules provide substantive content, but also leave “space” for the instructor to actively engage students with suggested discussion questions, exercises, readings and other teaching tools.
Readings in the modules are drawn from the research and/or professional literature, and several textbooks are recommended by the module developers. Each module provides a list of 3 to 5 readings from the literature that might be assigned to the students to read prior to or after an in-class session or during an online week of study in an online class. When taught online, the instructor may want to craft discussion questions from the readings.
The texts that are most frequently recommended by the module developers include:
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Wager KA, Lee FW, Glaser JP. Healthcare Information Systems. A Practical Approach for Health Care Management. Chapter 6: System Acquisition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2009
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Glandon GL, Smaltz DF, Slovensky, DJ. Austin and Boxerman's Information Systems For Healthcare Management, 7th Edition. Chapter 10:I M/IT Value. Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press, 2008
Sponsorship
The deepest appreciation of everyone involved in this project, and on behalf of graduate students and programs in health administration, is extended to HIMSS and to Siemens for their generous financial support of this project. It is meant to fill the gap that exists in graduate education relative to information management and to information systems implementation and use in healthcare. Graduates of these programs will find their careers in different healthcare management disciplines and venues. Wherever they work, information systems will increasingly be a part of the environment of care and will, importantly, be an essential part of the infrastructure on which the transformation of healthcare will evolve. The financial sponsorship of HIMSS and Siemens will make a difference in preparing graduates for their roles in implementing and using information technology to this end.
Project Leaders and Developers
From the beginning of this project, it has been guided by a Task Force of superb faculty, each an expert in health IT education. They continue to work on this project:
- Mark Diana, PhD, Assistant Professor and MHA Program Director, Tulane University
- Kevin Leonard, PhD, Associate Professor, HPME, University of Toronto (passed away July 2013)
- Brian Malec, PhD, Professor, Department of Health Science, California State University Northridge
- David Masuda, MD, MS, Lecturer, University of Washington – Seattle
- Karen Wager, DBA, Professor and Associate Dean for Student Affairs, Medical University of South Carolina
- Kendall Cortelyou Ward, PhD, Department of Health Professions, University of Central Florida
- David Wyant, PhD, Assistant Professor, Belmont University
Lydia Middleton, former CEO, AUPHA and John Lloyd, former CEO, CAHME served as valuable advisors to the project process. Margaret Schulte, DBA, FACHE, CPHIMS continues to serve as project coordinator.
Accessibility
The content in this curriculum is accessible through the use of most personal computer software. Documents are offered in Word format and lectures are available in both audio-with-PowerPoint format as well as in transcript to be used with the PowerPoints if desired.