Analytical Solutions to Common Healthcare Problems (Coursera)

Analytical Solutions to Common Healthcare Problems (Coursera)

In this course, we’re going to go over analytical solutions to common healthcare problems. I will review these business problems and you’ll build out various data structures to organize your data. We’ll then explore ways to group data and categorize medical codes into analytical categories. You will then be able to extract, transform, and load data into data structures required for solving medical problems and be able to also harmonize data from multiple sources.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see Coursera's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

Finally, you will create a data dictionary to communicate the source and value of data. Creating these artifacts of data processes is a key skill when working with healthcare data.
Course 4 of 4 in the Health Information Literacy for Data Analytics Specialization.

Syllabus

WEEK 1
Solving the Business Problems
In this module, you will explain why comparing healthcare providers with respect to quality can be beneficial, and what types of metrics and reporting mechanisms can drive quality improvement. You'll recognize the importance of making quality comparisons fairer with risk adjustment and be able to defend this methodology to healthcare providers by stating the importance of clinical and non-clinical adjustment variables, and the importance of high-quality data. You will distinguish the important conceptual steps of performing risk-adjustment; and be able to express the serious nature of medical errors within the US healthcare system, and communicate to stakeholders that reliable performance measures and associated interventions are available to help solve this tremendous problem. You will distinguish the traits that help categorize people into the small group of super-utilizers and summarize how this population can be identified and evaluated. You'll inform healthcare managers how healthcare fraud differs from other types of fraud by illustrating various schemes that fraudsters use to expropriate resources. You will discuss analytical methods that can be applied to healthcare data systems to identify potential fraud schemes.

WEEK 2
Algorithms and "Groupers"
In this module, you will define clinical identification algorithms, identify how data are transformed by algorithm rules, and articulate why some data types are more or less reliable than others when constructing the algorithms. You will also review some quality measures that have NQF endorsement and that are commonly used among health care organizations. You will discuss how groupers can help you analyze a large sample of claims or clinical data. You'll access open source groupers online, and prepare an analytical plan to map codes to more general and usable diagnosis and procedure categories. You will also prepare an analytical plan to map codes to more general and usable analytical categories as well as prepare a value statement for various commercial groupers to inform analytic teams what benefits they can gain from these commercial tools in comparison to the licensing and implementation costs.

WEEK 3
ETL (Extract, Transform, and Load)
In this module, you will describe logical processes used by database and statistical programmers to extract, transform, and load (ETL) data into data structures required for solving medical problems. You will also harmonize data from multiple sources and prepare integrated data files for analysis.

WEEK 4
From Data to Knowledge
In this module, you will describe to an analytical team how risk stratification can categorize patients who might have specific needs or problems. You'll list and explain the meaning of the steps when performing risk stratification. You will apply some analytical concepts such as groupers to large samples of Medicare data, also use the data dictionaries and codebooks to demonstrate why understanding the source and purpose of data is so critical. You will articulate what is meant by the general phase -- “Context matters when analyzing and interpreting healthcare data.” You will also communicate specific questions and ideas that will help you and others on your analytical team understand the meaning of your data.

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Diabetes - a Global Challenge (Coursera) Coursera
University of Copenhagen

Diabetes - a Global Challenge (Coursera)

Diabetes and obesity are growing health problems in rich and poor countries alike. With this course you will get updated on cutting-edge diabetes and obesity research including biological, genetic and clinical aspects as well as prevention and epidemiology of diabetes and obesity. All lectures are provided by high-profile scientists from one the world's leading universities in diabetes research.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Biochemical Principles of Energy Metabolism (Coursera) Coursera
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology - KAIST

Biochemical Principles of Energy Metabolism (Coursera)

Everyone knows that energy is essential for sustaining life. How can you define energy in life? Have ever thought about ways of how carbohydrates like glucose from your diet can be used for extracting energy? A scientific field that focuses on energy production and flow though living cells and organisms is called bioenergetics. Energy metabolism covers various biochemical ways of energy transformation and regulatory mechanisms of over thousands chemical reactions. Without fine control of those metabolic processes, cells and organisms cannot maintain activities linked to life.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Feeding the World (Coursera) Coursera
University of Pennsylvania

Feeding the World (Coursera)

This course will explore the concepts driving current food production science (population growth, urbanization, emerging affluence, resource constraints, and underlying biological limits) with the main focus on livestock production. Each of the major food animal species (dairy, swine, beef, and poultry) will be covered in terms of their universal life cycles, constraints to production and emerging societal issues.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Epidemics (Coursera) Coursera
University of Hong Kong

Epidemics (Coursera)

“If history is our guide, we can assume that the battle between the intellect and will of the human species and the extraordinary adaptability of microbes will be never-ending.” Despite all the remarkable technological breakthroughs that we have made over the past few decades, the threat from infectious diseases has significantly accelerated. In this course, we will learn why this is the case by looking at the fundamental scientific principles underlying epidemics and the public health actions behind their prevention and control in the 21st century.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Chemicals and Health (Coursera) Coursera
Johns Hopkins University

Chemicals and Health (Coursera)

This course covers chemicals in our environment and in our bodies and how they impact our health. It addresses policies and practices related to chemicals, particularly related to how they get into our bodies (exposures), what they do when they get there (toxicology), how we measure them (biomonitoring) and their impact on our health. Most examples are drawn from the US.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Psychology of Popularity (Coursera) Coursera
University of North Carolina

Psychology of Popularity (Coursera)

The level of popularity you experienced in childhood and adolescence is still affecting you today in ways that you may not even realize. Learn about how psychologists study popularity and how these same concepts can be used in adulthood to be more successful at work, become better parents, and have a happier life.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Big Data Analysis with Scala and Spark (Coursera) Coursera
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Big Data Analysis with Scala and Spark (Coursera)

Manipulating big data distributed over a cluster using functional concepts is rampant in industry, and is arguably one of the first widespread industrial uses of functional ideas. This is evidenced by the popularity of MapReduce and Hadoop, and most recently Apache Spark, a fast, in-memory distributed collections framework written in Scala. In this course, we'll see how the data parallel paradigm can be extended to the distributed case, using Spark throughout.

Aug 17th 2026
4 Weeks
Stories of Infection (Coursera) Coursera
Stanford University

Stories of Infection (Coursera)

This course introduces learners to a variety of infectious diseases using a patient-centered, story-based approach. Through illustrated, short videos, learners will follow the course of each patient’s illness, from initial presentation to resolution. Integrating the relevant microbiology, pathophysiology and immunology, this course aims to engage and entice the learner towards future studies in microbiology, immunology and infectious diseases.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Business Models for Innovative Care for Older People (Coursera) Coursera
University of Copenhagen,Copenhagen Business School

Business Models for Innovative Care for Older People (Coursera)

This course will introduce you to healthcare innovation within the field of healthy living and active aging. By following two specific cases on diabetes and rehabilitation, this interdisciplinary course will provide you with key theories, tools and concepts for analyzing and developing viable innovative solutions for aging populations. The lectures will cover demographic, biological, economic, social and cultural aspects of active aging and healthy living, along with lectures on current innovation theories and methods.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
HPV-Associated Oral and Throat Cancer: What You Need to Know (Coursera) Coursera
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

HPV-Associated Oral and Throat Cancer: What You Need to Know (Coursera)

This course, offered by the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, is designed to inform primary care physicians and otolaryngologists (general and head and neck surgeons), as well as medical students, residents, nurses, physician assistants, medical assistants, about HPV-associated oral and throat cancers. It is also applicable to individuals who wish to broaden their knowledge and vernacular about this disease process, especially those who may have been diagnosed with HPV and/or HPV-associated oropharyngeal cancers.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks