This unit provides an overview of healthcare trends including evidence based medicine, quality and practice-care recommendations, comparative effectiveness research, and an overview of healthcare reform initiatives in the US.

This unit describes healthcare delivery sites including outpatient care, hospitals, tertiary care centers, academic medical centers, the VA healthcare system, the military health system, the Indian health service, and non-traditional delivery sites such as school-based, community-based, and employer-based sites. It also specifically examines the structure, function and interrelationship between healthcare settings.

This unit defines information systems and describes how they are used. It discusses how an information system is designed, developed, tested, supported and maintained. Finally, it explains how information systems are used in healthcare settings, including the role of specialized information systems.

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) legislated incentives for the meaningful use of health information technology. This unit describes the meaningful use program of HITECH, eligibility for incentive payments, and the criteria for achieving those payments in Stage 1 of the program. It also describes the standards specified for Stage 1 of meaningful use, including those devoted to privacy and security.

This unit describes the concepts of quality measurement and performance improvement. The unit begins by setting the context of known quality problems in healthcare and then describes how quality is measured and efforts to improve it. The unit also discusses the role of information technology, incentives for quality improvement, and quality measurement under meaningful use.

This unit covers the history and evolution of computer networks, including the various types of network communications. Various forms of networking addressing are also covered, including network topologies, standards and protocols, logical model concepts, network hardware, and wireless communication.

This introductory unit discusses some of the underlying concepts of health, culture, and how health informatics applications can be used to study culture.

This unit defines privacy, confidentiality, and security of health information, including the HIPPA Privacy and Security Rules.

This unit provides a discussion of public health origins and history, the differentiation from private health, and the significant value provided by public health. It also reviews important terminology and includes an examination of the general organization of public health agencies and the flow of data within public health.

This introductory unit covers definitions of terms used in the component, with an emphasis on paradigm shifts in healthcare, including the transition from physician-centric to patient-centric care, the transition from individual care to interdisciplinary team-based care, and the central role of technology in healthcare delivery. This unit also emphasizes the core values in US healthcare.

This unit provides an overview of the regulation of healthcare, including regulatory and professional organizations, the regulation of safety in medicine, and key legal aspects of medicine. This unit also covers compliance issues including privacy violations, reimbursement and fraud and abuse.

This unit describes the processes used by a nurse in making clinical decisions and assessing patients. It also describes how nurses are trained, where they work and the procedures that they perform.

This unit covers common security concerns and safeguards, including firewalls, encryption, virus protection software and patterns, and programming for security. Additional topics include security of wireless networks, and concerns, mitigations, and regulations related to healthcare applications.

This unit looks at the challenges of adapting work processes to new technology, and the resulting impact on quality, efficiency, and safety. This unit also examines the phenomena of social and technical resistance to change, especially among clinicians.