Computer applications in health care and biomedicine, 10 credits

A Bachelor's degree or a professional degree equivalent to a Swedish Bachelor's degree of at least 180 credits in health care, biomedicine, medical technology, computer and systems sciences, informatics or the equivalent. Knowledge of the English language equivalent to English B at Swedish upper secondary school.

The general aim of the course is that the students should acquire knowledge and skills to be able to participate in the requirements engineering, the development, the introduction, the improvement and the evaluation of computer applications in healthcare, including heterogeneous settings, while considering interoperability, organizational, ethical and legal aspects.

On completion of the course the student should be able to:

Knowledge and understanding
- analyse, discuss and reflect on the information and communication needs in the health care and describe common sources of information,
- analyse, discuss and problematize the use of information systems or computer applications in health care.

Skills and ability
- describe the structure, functionality and use of information systems or computer applications (e.g: medical record systems,  telemedicine applications)   in healthcare including consumer health, medical education or public health.

Assessment ability and attitudes
- reflect on the integration problems between different information systems that are used in health care,
- analyse, discuss and reflect on legal/ethical aspects concerning the structure and the use of information system in health care.

- Business processes, care processes, care logistic and referral management
- The care information needs – communication – sources of information – transfer and use (basic informatics – collection processing and presentation of a patient-related data)
- Realisation of evidence based care and the connection to research.
- Operational follow up, quality assurance and Quality Register
- Information retrieval – information structures – standards (introduction to classifications, terminologies and ontologies)
- Exemplification/description of information systems in the areas of Clinical informatics, Consumer health informatics and Public health informatics.
- The structure, contents and the use of the patient record - Legal and ethical aspects
- Integration problems between different systems
- Data Security - Legal and ethical aspects

The course is divided into four separate parts in which experts give lectures and demonstrations. These four parts are:
- General part (Health informatics) (G)
- Clinical Informatics (CI)
- Consumer Health Informatics (CHI)
- Public Health Informatics (PHI)
and its practical use.

Each part has its own examination in form of individual assignments. Each individual assignment will be graded with A-F.
The final grade for the course is a weighted average of grades for all course components. To pass the course  the student must get at least E in all parts.

Limitation of number of occasions to write the exam
The student has the right to write the exam six times. If the student has not passed the exam after four participations he/she is encouraged to visit the study counsellor.
 

Examination will be provided during a time of two years after a possible cancellation of the course. Examination can take place according to an earlier literature list during a time of one year after the date when a major renewal of the literature
list has been made.

Course evaluation will be carried out in accordance with the guidelines established by the Board of Higher Education.

The course is given in English.