Courses:

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The following topics are covered in the course:

• the nature of clinical data
• architecture and design of healthcare information systems
• privacy and security issues
• medical expert systems
• introduction to genomic medicine and its techniques.

Case studies of contemporary systems are used in lecture sessions. Term project is required. The project involves using a large pseudonymized clinical dataset to integrate classroom topics.

We plan to give a handful of modest homework assignments to complement and reinforce material taught in the class. You must do the homework problems on your own. Of course you may ask for help and advice from classmates, but the final work that you turn in and all the words used to describe it must be your own.

Shortliffe, E. H., L. E. Perreault, G. Wiederhold, and L. M. Fagan. Medical Informatics: Computer Applications in Health Care and Biomedicine. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Springer, 2003. ISBN: 9780387984728 .

The last four class sessions will be an opportunity for students to present the results of significant research projects done for the class. We encourage you to team up (in teams of two or three students) to work on projects, and teams that span students with different interests, skills and approaches are encouraged.