Online Health Informatics program launches new course focusing on the growing field of healthcare data

The UIC online Master of Science and Post-Master’s Certificate in Health Informatics programs are excited to announce a new course, BHIS 561: Programming for Health Analytics. Launching this summer, the BHIS 561 course introduces students to fundamental principles of programming for data science using a popular language like Python, and exposes students to basic programming techniques, data manipulation, and data analysis pertaining to healthcare data.

Developed in response to student demand, UIC Research Assistant Professor, Dr. Biswajit Maharathi, PhD, will be the course instructor and is looking forward to teaching a skillset that has grown exponentially. Learn from Dr. Maharathi about the importance of taking BHIS 561 and how mastering these skills will set you a part in your future healthcare career.

What skills do students learn in BHIS 561: Programming for Health Analytics, and how are those skills applied to the workforce?
Python and PostgreSQL are two of the most in-demand skills in analytics. With this course, you will master programming in Python, interact with databases and files, learn how to write SQL queries, manipulate data, compute basic statistics, and produce engaging graphs, charts, and reports. The knowledge will help you jump-start your health analytics and data science career and guide you in taking advantage of Python and SQL to automate your analytics and reporting.

How is Python and SQL mastered in your class?
The coursework focuses on hand-on learning of Python programming and its application in analytics. You will learn to work with different data types, write functions, work with dates and times, interact with file systems, manipulate data frames through pandas, learn to handle errors, calculate basic statistics for reporting, and use Plotly and matplotlib for interactive figures and charts. The database component will teach you how to connect to a database, securely store credentials, and write, data selection and insert queries.

Why is it important for students to take the BHIS 561 course?
Healthcare data has grown exponentially. The extensive collection of health information significantly demands qualitative and quantitative approaches to provide viable interpretation by exploring trends and patterns in the data. Data acquisition, management, analysis, and interpretation with accuracy and timely fashion need robust programming support. With BHIS 561, you will learn to automate these aspects, ideate new approaches to handle the issue, and guide colleagues and teams to provide analytics support.

What do you like most about teaching online courses and interacting with students online?
Teaching is one of my passions. The asynchronous course style provides a lot of flexibility for students to learn the coursework at their will. Programming takes time beyond the scope of the classroom, and online classes enable us to learn more. Through the interactive lectures and course forums, I am interested in understanding how students plan to use this course learning to enhance their job functionalities and provide adequate assistance to succeed in their goals.

UIC’s online Health Informatics programs have been preparing leaders in the field of health informatics – 100% online – since 2006. Health Informatics is one of the fastest growing interdisciplinary fields – with 32% projected job growth through 2029* – and students coming from a multitude of professional backgrounds, including nurses, pharmacists, clinicians, and data scientists. *Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics