Flexible Approaches for Teaching Computational Genomics in a Health Information Management Program

Leming Zhou, PhD, Valerie Watzlaf, PhD, RHIA, FAHIMA, and Mervat Abdelhak, PhD, RHIA, FAHIMA

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Abstract

The astonishing improvement of high-throughput biotechnologies in recent years makes it possible to access a huge amount of genomic data. The association between genomic data and genetic disease has already been and will continue to be applied to personalized healthcare. Health information management (HIM) professionals are the ones who will handle personal genetic information and provide solid evidence to support physicians’ diagnoses and personalized treatment strategies, and therefore they will need to have the knowledge and skills to process genomic data. In this paper, we describe flexible approaches for teaching a computational genomics course in the HIM program at the University of Pittsburgh. HIM programs at other universities may choose an appropriate approach to fit into their own curriculum.

Key words: education, genomics, flexibility