Non-Credit Certificates Online

Healthcare Communications

Curriculum

Health Communications That Can Make a Difference in Patient Care

The new Healthcare Communications certificate at UChicago offers training in the most prevalent specialized writings of health communications. There is increased awareness of the importance of communicating health information effectively to the public across platforms within this growing industry. This flexible, online program will cover patient education; various marketing and promotional platforms and regulations; healthcare audiences; ethical and legal standards; communication principles; and increasing audience literacies.

After certificate completion, you will be able to:

  • Develop compelling collateral within the highly regulated advertising environment.
  • Apply the principles of medical copywriting within real-world scenarios.
  • Implement strategies for creating effective healthcare content deliverables.
  • Apply knowledge learned about accreditation requirements to design educational materials for health professionals.
  • Build upon your healthcare career to focus on this growing industry.
  • Qualify for entry-level jobs in pharma, hospital systems, research, grant writing, and specialized marketing agencies.
  • Change your career within healthcare to specialize in medical writing.
  • Expand freelancing opportunities.

Join the Growing Healthcare Communications Industry

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Bring Health Literacy to the Forefront of Medicine

Core healthcare communication courses

Courses in the Healthcare Communications program will strengthen your understanding of communication types, audiences, platforms, regulations, and best practices, for constructing clear, ethical, patient-centered communications to multiple audiences.

  • The program consists of three core requirements with a flexible sequential course progression.
  • Students can complete the certificate in as little as nine months to three years.
  • Class sizes range from ten to twenty students per course.
  • Classes are offered remotely with live, interactive, synchronous sessions.
  • After successful completion of core requirements, participants will receive a credential certified by the University of Chicago.

Writing for Patient Education

HCO11100 | Online | 7 weeks

Writing for Patient Education will offer an overview of patient communications and provide learners with a framework for creating materials that patients, families, and caregivers can use. It will address the difference between need-to-know and nice-to-know information, explore the various formats of patient information, evaluate real-world examples, and engage students in rewriting existing samples and creating their own samples to start building a work portfolio.

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Writing for Healthcare Advertising

HCO11200 | Online | 7 weeks

Healthcare advertising is a multibillion dollar industry. Promotional medical writers play an integral role in the conceptualization and development of digital and printed healthcare marketing material. This course takes learners behind the scenes of healthcare advertising to understand how the industry works and how to develop compelling advertising copy against the backdrop of a highly regulated advertising environment. Students will apply the principles of promotional medical writing (i.e., medical copywriting) through several small assignments and the production of a piece of marketing material (speculative work) for use in their portfolios.

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Continuing Education for Healthcare Professionals

HCO11300 | Online | 7 weeks

Accredited and non-accredited education are vital for keeping health professionals apprised of rapidly evolving healthcare and therapeutic landscapes. On the accredited side of education, health professionals are required to earn continuing medical education / continuing education for health professionals (CME/CE) credits to maintain their professional licenses. Accredited education is regulated via the independent oversight of accreditation bodies, such as the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education. Nonaccredited education focuses on educating health professionals on specific therapeutic areas of a given product. Medical writers are instrumental in developing both types of education. To ensure that CME/CE content meets the needs of health professionals, medical writers should be knowledgeable about and able to apply principles of adult learning, emerging insights from the learning sciences, and fundamentals of content integrity to their work. This course provides an introduction to creating educational content for health professionals that is reliable, accurate, and free from commercial influence.

This course will equip medical writers with knowledge and practical skills in creating high-quality, evidence-based educational content for health professionals, ensuring that it aligns with the rigorous standards of both accredited and non-accredited continuing education, fosters ongoing professional development, and upholds the highest levels of integrity and accuracy free from commercial influence.

Students will demonstrate these objectives by completing a portfolio that incorporates best practices in adult learning, adheres to ethical standards for content integrity, meets the specific needs of a chosen healthcare audience, and aligns with established learning outcomes frameworks.

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Flexible, online healthcare communications course format

  • Each course is seven weeks in length.
  • Synchronous sessions are conducted through Zoom.
  • Attendance to synchronous sessions is mandatory.
  • All online courses begin on a Monday with a full week of self-study activities in Canvas, our learning management system.
  • Weekly, self-paced learning and materials are time-sensitive and must be completed within required time frames.
  • Weekly, self-paced learning in Canvas leads to one synchronous session per week.
  • When registering for a course, “online self-paced” refers to the course's beginning and end dates, and “online fixed dates” refers to synchronous sessions.
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