How consultants help healthcare organizations with technology: the health IT landscape, electronic health records, interoperability and data standards, clinical informatics, analytics and AI, telemedicine program design and regulation, cybersecurity basics, vendor selection and implementation, governance, change management and building a consulting practice. Eighteen lessons.
Modules
The Health IT Landscape
Lessons
Electronic Health Records and Interoperability
Lessons
Clinical Informatics and Analytics
Lessons
Telemedicine
Lessons
Security Vendors and Implementation
Lessons
Governance Change and Practice
Lessons
Other Lessons
Module 4 Review
Module review: key terms, activity and quiz.
Lesson 1.1: What Health IT and Informatics Consulting Covers
Health information technology (health IT) broadly covers the systems, software, and infrastructure healthcare organizations use to capture, store, exchange, and act on clinical and administrative data, including electron
Lesson 5.1: The HIPAA Security Rule Framework
The HIPAA Security Rule requires covered entities and business associates to implement administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronic protecte
Lesson 1.2: Key Roles and Stakeholders
Health IT and telemedicine engagements typically involve a specific set of internal roles a consultant needs to recognize and work with appropriately: the Chief Information Officer (CIO), responsible for overall IT strat
Lesson 5.2: Common Security Gaps in Health IT and Telehealth Projects
A recurring gap in EHR and interoperability projects involves interfaces and integrations built for functional connectivity without equal attention to whether the resulting data flow introduces new security exposure, suc
Lesson 1.3: The Regulatory Backbone of Health IT
Health IT in the United States operates within a specific federal regulatory structure that a consultant needs to understand at a working level: the HITECH Act (part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) es
Lesson 5.3: Building a Reasonable, Risk-Based Security Program
HIPAA’s Security Rule is explicitly designed around a flexible, risk-based approach rather than a rigid, one-size-fits-all technical checklist, meaning the specific safeguards an organization implements should be proport
Module 1 Review
Module review: key terms, activity and quiz.
Module 5 Review
Module review: key terms, activity and quiz.
Lesson 2.1: EHR Selection Fundamentals
An EHR selection project should begin with a structured needs assessment, not a vendor demo tour: documenting the organization’s current workflows, specific pain points with an existing system if one is being replaced, m
Lesson 6.1: Structuring Service Lines and Positioning
Health IT and telemedicine consulting naturally organizes into service lines that mirror this course’s modules: EHR selection support, implementation project management, EHR optimization, interoperability project design
Lesson 2.2: Implementation Planning and Change Management
EHR implementation projects typically move through phases including detailed workflow design (mapping exactly how each clinical and administrative process will work in the new system, not just accepting vendor default co
Lesson 6.2: Scoping, Pricing, and Vendor Neutrality
Scoping a health IT engagement should follow the same discovery-first discipline covered throughout this catalog, with sector-specific questions that should always be asked upfront: what systems and platforms are current
Lesson 2.3: EHR Optimization and Reducing Clinician Burden
EHR optimization consulting addresses an organization that already has a live, functioning EHR but is experiencing specific problems: excessive clinician time spent on documentation (a major driver of clinician burnout t
Lesson 6.3: Staying Current and Building Referral Relationships
Health IT and telemedicine regulation and technology change at a genuinely fast pace, faster than many other consulting niches covered in this catalog, which means a sustainable practice in this area requires a deliberat
Module 2 Review
Module review: key terms, activity and quiz.
Module 6 Review
Module review: key terms, activity and quiz.
Lesson 3.1: HL7 v2 Messaging
HL7 (Health Level Seven) v2 is the long-standing messaging standard most healthcare systems still use for a large share of real-time data exchange, particularly for order and result transmission, admission-discharge-tran
Lesson 3.2: FHIR and Modern APIs
FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, pronounced ‘fire’) is the modern interoperability standard built around discrete, well-defined ‘resources’ (such as Patient, Observation, Condition, MedicationRequest, an
Lesson 3.3: ONC Certification and Information Blocking
The ONC Health IT Certification Program tests and certifies health IT products (primarily EHRs) against a defined set of technical, functional, privacy, and security criteria, and certification matters practically becaus
Module 3 Review
Module review: key terms, activity and quiz.
Lesson 4.1: Telehealth Modalities and Technology
Telehealth encompasses several distinct modalities that a consultant should distinguish clearly, since regulatory and reimbursement treatment can differ meaningfully by modality: live, synchronous video or audio-video vi
Lesson 4.2: Licensure and Cross-State Practice
Physicians and most other licensed clinicians must generally hold an active license in the state where the patient is physically located at the time of a telehealth encounter, not necessarily the state where the provider
Lesson 4.3: Reimbursement and Coverage Considerations
Telehealth reimbursement varies by payer type in ways a consultant must track carefully and verify currently: traditional Medicare telehealth coverage has historically been more restrictive than commercial insurance or M