Master of Science in Healthcare Analytics

Program Description/Overview

The Master of Science of Healthcare Analytics (MSHCA) degree enables students to learn the techniques and skills needed to work with diverse data sets, a range of analytics platforms and reporting tools to improve health care through the use of innovative and essential techniques that enable the delivery of efficient and quality healthcare analytics. Students will learn to select, prepare, analyze, interpret, evaluate and present health data related to health system performance and effectiveness.

The classes will all be offered on campus, beginning at the main San Diego campus. All courses will be supported by Alliant’s Learning Management System as a course document repository for the course syllabi and submission of assignments. Courses include one hour a week of project lab work that will be conducted either on-site or via distance learning. The final learning experience in the curriculum is a Professional Practice engagement either as an internship or a project in a healthcare or medical setting.

This program is a graduate academic degree program which is geared to graduating students in a job-ready state. The courses in the MSHA curriculum have been designed to give students the skills required to excel in careers in the data and analytics arena in a wide range of industries. The program has been designed with the additional advantage to students of encouraging them to prepare and successfully test for industry recognized and sought-after certifications (e.g., MCSA’s SQL Database Development). Students will be introduced to certifications’ requirements and encouraged to apply to and successfully pass their exams. The tests are external to Alliant and administered by independent referent disciplines. Most job postings in the subject area require one or more of these certifications.

Specific courses in the curriculum of the MSHA program are aligned with appropriate certifications. In addition to discussing the requirements of the externally administered certifications, selective material will be covered in the classroom to encourage and guide the student for the certification test. The main preparation for the certification exam will require self-study and self-preparation by the students. The aim is to encourage students to strengthen their resumes with a graduate MSHA degree as well as industry relevant certifications which together make them a strong candidate with a competitive advantage.

Program Learning Outcomes/Goals

1. Define and comply with key legal, regulatory, and ethical constraints and safeguards to protect sensitive client data.
2. Conduct logistical, diagnostic, descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive statistical evaluations to quickly and accurately inform healthcare stakeholders.
3. Recognize, articulate, and utilize key performance and financial indicators in health information analysis and reporting.
4. Effectively synthesize and integrate ontological classifications, nomenclature, and coding into healthcare systems and analytics processes.
5. Evaluate and represent trending and phenomenological healthcare data results leading to improvement and optimization opportunities.
6. Identify and resolve issues related to the implementation of ambulatory, clinical, acute care, long-term care, electronic health records, patient demographic, patient satisfaction surveying, and electronic prescribing healthcare data and reporting initiatives.

Internship, Practicum, and/or Dissertation Information

Students are required to participate in the internship series as part of their experiential learning within the program. The internship is designed to develop professional practice related skills in student’s program expertise through a variety of work experiences which could involve independently conducted professional projects or an internship. This is designed to provide students with in-depth, supervised practical learning experiences. The internship required may be prior to one academic year in the program. As a result, international students completing the internship series prior to one (1) academic year should contact the International Students Office for details and specialized requirements.

Credit Units

Total Credit Units: 33

Total Core Credit Units: 33

Total Elective Credit Units: N/A

Total Concentration Credit Units: N/A

Prerequisite Courses

This program has two pre-requisite courses that are to be completed during Session 1 and 2 of Year One. Applications for a waiver is to be made to the program academic advisor. For consideration to waive the pre-requisite courses, students must satisfy one of the following requirements:

1. Bachelor Degrees: Students with undergraduate majors including a course in math, a course in statistics and a course in programming are eligible to apply for waivers of the program pre-requisites courses.

   1. A 3-unit equivalent course completed at the Bachelor’s level within the last 3 years in math or in statistics with a grade of B+ or better will waive the DAT50050  pre-requisite course. In cases where the course was completed more than 3 years ago but less than 5 years ago, students can apply for a waiver and the program will assess the course contents.

   2. A 3-unit equivalent course completed at the Bachelor’s level in programming (e.g., C++, .NET/C#, JAVA, R, or Python) within the last 3 years with a grade of B+ or better will waive the DAT50000  pre-requisite course. In cases where the course was completed more than 3 years ago but less than 5 years ago, students can apply for a waiver and the program will assess the course contents.

2. Masters Degrees: Students with a masters including a course in math or statistics, and a course in programming at the masters level, completed with a grade of B or better in the previous 5 years can waive the applicable subject area pre-requisite course for the program.

The prerequisite courses for this program are to be completed during Session 1 and 2 of Year One:

• DAT50000 - Essentials of Informatics Using Python  (3 units)
• DAT50050 - Basic Applied Statistics  (3 units)

Curriculum Plan

The following curriculum plan is a sample and serves only as a general guide. Curriculum plans and course sequence are subject to variation depending on a student’s start term. Students must complete all coursework required for their program as set forth in their individual master plan of study.