The Importance of Healthcare Data in the Health Informatics Field

In previous newsletters, I have spoken about “experience with SQL” as a commonly listed skill for the healthcare analyst role because knowing how to “slice and dice” raw, unstructured data into actionable insights can be a large part of the role. SQL stands for structured query language and is used to ask questions about the data from tables stored in a database (e.g., How many people received the COVID-19 vaccine who were admitted to our hospital?)

Healthcare data is oftentimes messy and can come from multiple sources: it can be entered manually in an Excel spreadsheet, it can be sourced from the EHR/EMR, it can come from labs… the possibilities are endless! Storing healthcare data in a database, instead of multiple Excel spreadsheets, with interconnected tables makes it much easier to retrieve data and reduces the risk of data breaches.

By analyzing healthcare data, predictions can be made in terms of seasonal trends (fall and winter preparedness) such as flu season, to prepare healthcare organizations. Also, by analyzing hospital trends such as how many patients are occupying beds, can inform decision-making.

Next week I will be releasing the course: Learn the Skills to Get Your First Role as a Healthcare Analyst which focuses on developing your SQL skills with the final result of developing a clinical dashboard that you can link to in your resume

In this course, you will learn data exploratory methods, writing SQL JOINS, using aggregation operations, and much more!

Best,
Alana

Resources

Interested in learning more about how you can become a healthcare analyst? Join me at 6 PM EST on Tuesday, February 20th! Please register here:

In this free workshop, I will provide context on a typical day in the life of someone working in the health informatics field, as a healthcare data analyst, and will highlight key technical and soft skills used in this role. I will then review common skills outlined in job descriptions and go over some popular interview questions and tips on how to format your resume, to improve your chances of getting your dream role!

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