What you will learn
- The unique challenges of healthcare delivery in the US and the developed world
- The potential of informatics based tools and systems to help solve these challenges
- The impediments that have long existed to informatics adoption
- The potential impact, technical details and current adoption of HL7’s new FHIR API including specific examples of its use for physicians and their patients; population and public health and research
This series of courses begins with an introduction to the US healthcare delivery system, its many systemic challenges and the prior efforts to develop and deploy informatics tools to help overcome those problems. It goes on to discuss health informatics from an historical perspective, its current state and its likely future state now that electronic health record systems are widely deployed, the HL7 FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) standard is being rapidly accepted as the means to access and share the data stored in those systems and analytics is increasing being used to support clinical research using that aggregated data. It then turns to the impact of FHIR in transforming healthcare with a focus on some of the important and evolving areas of informatics including health information exchange, population health, public health, mHealth and big data and analytics. Use cases and case studies are used in all of these discussions to help students connect the technologies to real world challenges.
Expert instruction
3 skill-building courses
Self-paced
Progress at your own speed
4 months
10 - 11 hours per week
$297
USD
For the full program experience
Courses in this program
GTx's Health Informatics on FHIR Professional Certificate
- 10–11 hours per week, for 5 weeks
Background on US healthcare, the key current applications of informatics in healthcare delivery
- 10–11 hours per week, for 5 weeks
The key standards for representing and sharing healthcare data.
- 10–11 hours per week, for 5 weeks
Some of the key focus areas for health informatics research and development
- According to the 2018 HIMSS U.S. Leadership and IT Workforce Survey:
- 69% of healthcare software vendors and consultants have open positions
- 34% of hospitals have open positions
- 75% of vendors/consultants expect workforce expansion
- 40% of hospitals expect workforce expansion
Meet your instructor from The Georgia Institute of Technology (GTx)
Experts from GTx committed to teaching online learning
Program endorsements

Rimidi is a leading developer of SMART on FHIR applications for management of chronic health conditions. FHIR allows for seamless integration to EHR workflows and individuals with experience developing FHIR apps are rare and in high demand. Candidates who have earned a professional certificate through Dr. Braunstein's Health Informatics on FHIR courses on edX would have a distinct advantage in the health IT marketplace.
Lucienne Ide , MD, PhD, Founder and Chief Health Innovator
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