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Intro to Digital Technology in Healthcare, Plain & Simple
Rating: 4.6 out of 5(954 ratings)
2,893 students

Intro to Digital Technology in Healthcare, Plain & Simple

Learn the fundamentals of data, data compression, databases and data architecture in digital healthcare.
Created byThomas Giordano
Last updated 5/2026
English
English [Auto],

What you'll learn

  • The basics of data technology to form a foundation for understanding Healthcare Information Systems
  • Understand the basics of databases and managing them
  • Understand the difference between centralized and distributed data and why that is important to healthcare

Course content

3 sections • 9 lectures • 1h 1m total length

  • Introduction1:46

    Explore the fundamentals of bits and bytes and their role in health care information systems. Discover data storage methods, data compression, databases, data management, and centralized versus distributed architectures.

  • Bits and Bytes7:34

    Understand how bits and bytes encode digital data, how medical images are digitized into pixels with greyscale values, and how storage and network needs scale.

  • Storage Media11:57

    Traces storage media evolution from paper to cloud, explains fragmentation and defragmentation on hard drives, and contrasts magnetic disks with flash memory and a redundant array to handle cardiac imaging.

  • Compression8:43

    Explore how data compression reduces large healthcare data for faster transmission and storage, while balancing fidelity, artifacts, and the debate over raw versus compressed medical images.

  • Databases10:03

    Explore how databases separate structured and unstructured data, using records and fields, with examples from libraries, excel spreadsheets, and web search indexing for health care decisions.

  • Data Management9:13

    Explore hierarchical storage management for health data, balancing online, near online, and offline storage—rapid access versus cost, with cloud archiving as a scalable tier.

  • Centralized or Distributed Architecture11:09

    Compare centralized and distributed storage architectures in healthcare. Centralized systems offer speed but risk a single point of failure; distributed storage adds redundancy and index across data centers for reliability.

Requirements

  • There are no course requirements or prerequisites. This course in a foundation course.

Description

WHY IS THIS COURSE IMPORTANT?

Did you ever want someone to explain to you, in non-technical terms what a bit and a byte really is and what does it have to do with healthcare?  Did you ever wonder how "clouds" actually store data and how you shrink the data to fit in?  How about organizing all that data so you can derive something useful from it all?   If so, this is the course for you.  These technologies if implemented correctly have the potential of making healthcare processes more efficient and maximizing patient and user experience. If implemented incorrectly, they can wreak havoc.

WHAT WILL YOU LEARN IN THIS COURSE?

Learn the basic concepts behind data bits and bytes, data storage devices, compression and data management.

  • Bits & Bytes

  • Storage Media

  • Compression

  • Databases

  • Data Management

  • Centralized vs Distributed Architecture

This course includes:

  • Video lectures walking you through the various aspects of wireless

  • Quiz to test your retention

  • Significant number of resources to do a deeper dive into this topic.

WHO IS THE IDEAL STUDENT FOR THIS COURSE?

You will learn a lot from this course if you are

  • Thinking about choosing healthcare as a career

  • Looking to advance your career in healthcare

  • Looking to expand your knowledge of healthcare to better perform your current job and better understand how it fits into the ecosystem of patient care and better serve those in need

  • Curious about everything and want to learn more about healthcare just for the sake of expanding your knowledge base.

WHAT IS YOUR TEACHING STYLE?

My teaching style is a very pragmatic one. I assume you know nothing about this topic and start with the foundation and build from there. Some of these concepts could be challenging, so I sprinkle in as many examples as I can, both non healthcare and healthcare, to assure full understanding of the topic. This is why I have appended "Plain and Simple" to all my courses.

WHY ARE YOU QUALIFIED TO TEACH THIS COURSE?

I spent 35 years in the designing and launching of medical imaging products and services. My career evolved from leading engineering teams, to becoming VP Marketing and then to president of a Healthcare IT firm. It is also based on 15 years of university teaching.

Who this course is for:

  • Those currently in a healthcare position, wanting to learn more about Information Systems and the role they play in healthcare.
  • Those considering a career change and wanting to learn more about Healthcare Information systems.
  • Those entering the healthcare industry and considering a career in Healthcare Information Systems
  • The eternally curious

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