Course Description

This course is designed to cover the fundamentals of healthcare database design and management. Course topics will include the principles and methodologies of database design, normalization, database security, relational database models, database languages, and big data principles. Students will learn how to retrieve, analyze, and aggregate relational healthcare data for analytics purposes using SQL to make informed business decisions. Emphasis will be placed on healthcare information systems and databases, research data, and data collection methodologies commonly used in the healthcare sector. Students will be assessed using written assignments, database diagramming and query writing, and healthcare data case studies over the duration of the course.

• Demonstrate an understanding of core database principles and their structural elements,
• Design database models using Entity Relationship (ER) diagrams and database schemas,
• Deconstruct Entity Relationship diagrams into healthcare business rules/requirements,
• Differentiate between the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and the Database Development Life Cycle (DBLC) and the purpose the both serve during the database design process,
• Compose basic and advanced Structured Query Language (SQL) queries to retrieve and display healthcare databases,
• Optimize data structures and tables that eliminate duplication, unnecessary data entry, and confusion,
• Explain industry best practices used in the healthcare industry to ensure database the security, privacy, and confidentiality of data stored,
• Merge, analyze, and query healthcare databases to produce new information elements,
• Identify the different data storage methodologies and the appropriate use of each method based on the data stored, and
• Understand how databases enable big data and data analytics in the healthcare enterprise.