D190 is Introduction to Healthcare IT Systems, listed at WGU as HIM 2002 and worth four competency units. The catalog presents healthcare information technology as a discipline and covers evaluating health information systems, collecting data, and the supporting role of the health information manager. It is an early course that introduces vocabulary many students have only met casually, and the aspect that catches people out is evaluation. Describing what a system does is easy. Evaluating it requires a standard to measure against, and supplying that standard is your job rather than the system's.
The estate of systems, and why the boundaries matter
A hospital does not run one system. It runs an electronic health record, a registration and scheduling system, a laboratory system, a radiology system with image storage, a pharmacy system, a billing and claims system, a document imaging system, and often a data warehouse pulling from all of them. Each was bought at a different time for a different reason, and the seams between them are where most operational problems live.
That is why interfaces and interoperability matter more than features in this subject. When a result crosses from the laboratory system to the record, something has to map one system's identifiers and codes onto another's. When mapping is incomplete, information arrives as unstructured text that nothing downstream can use, or does not arrive at all. Writing accurately about that seam is more valuable than listing what any single product can do.
The other boundary worth getting right is between the system and the workflow. A system does not collect data. People collect data using a system, at a moment in their day, under time pressure. Data quality problems that look technical are usually capture problems, and a health information manager who understands that is the one who can actually fix them.
Aspects, and sizing an evaluation deliverable
Your scored aspects live in the Course of Study rather than the catalog. In this course they usually combine short definitional items with one or two substantial evaluation items, and the definitional ones are seductive because they are easy to write at length.
The word budget, worked. Take a 1,600 word submission with nine scored aspects. Reserve 100 for a paragraph naming the organization, the system type and the workflow you are examining, leaving 1,500, or about 167 per aspect flat. Definitional aspects need 100 words each: define, then give one health setting example. If five aspects are definitional, that is 500, releasing 1,000 for the remaining four. Give the evaluation aspects 300 each and the data collection aspect 100. That reallocation is the difference between a paper that reads as an introduction and one that reads as an analysis, and it costs nothing except the discipline of keeping definitions short.
Choose your evaluation criteria before you look at any system. Criteria chosen after reading about a product tend to be the product's strengths, and an evaluator will notice that every criterion happens to be met.
A system evaluation with criteria that came first
Where the directions supply a framework, use it. Where they do not, build this table with your criteria set before you assess anything, and score each criterion with a sentence of justification rather than a number alone.
| Criterion | What you assess | How you would verify it |
|---|---|---|
| Functional fit | Whether it supports the specific tasks in your named workflow | Walk the workflow step by step against the system's capability |
| Data capture quality | Structured fields, validation, code sets, free text exposure | Count how many required elements are structured rather than typed |
| Interoperability | Standards supported, interfaces available, what has to be built | List the systems it must exchange with and check each direction |
| Usability | Clicks per task, training time, error recovery | Time a representative task and count the steps |
| Security and access | Role based access, audit logging, review capability | Ask whether you could produce an access report for one record |
| Reporting | Standard reports, ad hoc query, export options | Name three reports the department needs and check each |
| Support and continuity | Vendor support model, downtime behavior, recovery expectations | Ask what happens to work in progress during an outage |
| Total cost | Licensing, interfaces, training, backfill, ongoing support | Build a five year figure, not a purchase price |
Weight the criteria before scoring and say why. A department whose main problem is denials will weight data capture and reporting heavily. One whose main problem is turnaround will weight usability. Stating the weighting rationale converts an evaluation aspect that would otherwise read as a preference.
Evidence craft in an introductory technology course
Early courses are where sourcing habits are formed, and this subject punishes the wrong ones quickly.
- Separate what a vendor claims from what independent sources report, in your own sentences, every time.
- Use standards bodies and professional associations for definitions rather than a general web summary.
- Describe workflows at the level of steps and roles, and say whether your description is observed or drawn from published sources.
- Attach numbers where you can: number of interfaces, elements captured, minutes per task, users affected.
- Keep security concrete. Role based access, audit logs and access review are the three that recur in health information work.
- Cite in APA at the point of the claim, including vendor material when you use it, so the reader can see what kind of source it is.
One habit is worth carrying into every later course: name the data element and follow it. Where does it get entered, who enters it, what validates it, where does it go, and which report or claim depends on it. That single trace answers more aspects across this program than any general description ever will.
What separates Competent from a submission sent back
The returns in this course have three shapes. The evaluation with no criteria, where a system is described and then judged. The criteria that were clearly written after the system was chosen. And the definitional answer with no health setting example, which cannot be scored for application even when the definition is perfect.
Work that passes on the first read states its criteria before assessing, weights them with a reason, gives every definition an applied example, describes at least one workflow in steps with roles, and names a total cost that includes more than the purchase price. It also says what the health information manager specifically contributes, which the catalog names directly and which students often leave implied.
Performance assessment work at WGU can be revised and resubmitted with no grade penalty, so a return costs term time rather than a score. This is a foundational course, and in a six month flat rate term it is worth closing early because the systems, statistics and coding courses all assume its vocabulary.
If your plan includes a proctored objective assessment for this course, our support is preparation only. We drill vocabulary, work practice items and give an honest readiness call. The proctored assessment is yours to sit alone, and we ask for no login of any kind.
Five mistakes that cost time in D190
- Criteria written after the system was chosen. Set them first, weight them, then assess. Otherwise the evaluation is a description with scores attached.
- Definitions with no example. One sentence of application turns a copied definition into a demonstrated one.
- Ignoring interfaces. Most real problems live between systems, not inside one.
- Cost stated as purchase price. Interfaces, training, support and staff time usually exceed the licence over five years.
- Treating data collection as automatic. People capture data during a workflow, and that is where quality is won or lost.
How we work this course with you
Send the task directions and your rubric and you get a weighted criteria set built before any system is examined, an evaluation table ready to score with justification prompts in each row, a workflow map for the process you are writing about, and a section plan with word counts that keeps definitions short and evaluation long. On review we check that each definition has an applied example and that your criteria could have been written before you knew which system you would assess. That last check sounds pedantic and it is the single most reliable predictor of whether an evaluation aspect scores, because criteria that were reverse engineered from a chosen product read differently on the page than criteria that were set in advance, and experienced evaluators recognize the difference immediately.
Questions D190 students ask
Which system should I choose to evaluate?
Do I need to have used the system I write about?
What does interoperability actually mean in practice?
Working the D190 evaluation?
Send the HIM 2002 directions. You get a weighted criteria set and a workflow map back.
Where D190 sits in WGU's programs
The July 2026 catalog places this code in 1 current WGU program. Open a program page for the complete standard path and term positions. The live Degree Plan remains authoritative after transfer credit, substitutions, and mentor planning.
The assessments, one by one
The public catalog does not publish this course's PA/OA identity or task count. WGU Tutors publishes at most one PA manual per course and only from a WGU-controlled public rubric. Until that source exists, PA help begins from the student's real Course of Study and OA support remains preparation only.