Experiential Learning in Health Informatics

This course is an opportunity to participate in experiential learning by connecting academic research with a real-world healthcare management or health informatics problem. Students may take this class either early in their degree program as an introduction to healthcare or health informatics, or later in the program as a prerequisite for their upcoming Capstone experience. First, students will conduct informational interviews with healthcare management and health informatics instructors to learn more about a chosen problem. Those taking this course as an introduction will learn key skills necessary to identify an independent research project topic, formulate a research question with a business, healthcare or health industry application, investigate research methodologies, explore the requirements for human subjects research through the Institutional Review Board (IRB), and draft a project proposal. Students preparing for their Capstone experience (all health informatics students and some healthcare management students) will prepare a Capstone project proposal according to approvable structure and deliverable guidelines. They will choose and schedule a meeting with their Capstone Advisor, select a research topic, formulate a research question with an industry application, develop a thesis statement, choose appropriate project methodologies, and draft a project proposal that will meet appropriate ethics and compliance requirements for human subjects research, and submit their proposal to the IRB for approval.