Health Informatics Master of Science
Looking at health data from all the angles
Identifying problems and crafting solutions using biomedical data—while never forgetting patients’ needs—is what we’re all about.
The Master of Science in Health Informatics degree integrates health care, health information technology, informatics, and many other fields. Our students learn to analyze and protect patient data, and to improve the quality of medical care and make it more efficient.
CAHIIM-accredited and AHIMA-approved
The Master of Science in Health Informatics is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education (CAHIIM) and approved by the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA).
Practical technologies that reveal health care solutions
Our 36-credit-hour program equips students to examine how patients use their health care information, and to the build the tools that make it easier to manage unstructured data and extract useful information. By learning how to appropriately utilize natural language processing and other tools, our graduates can improve clinical decision support, electronic health records management, and patient privacy.
You’ll complete your health informatics master’s degree with either a thesis or a project, which provides a practical solution to a health information problem.
Far-reaching health informatics careers
You’ll find our graduates creating technologies used on the front lines of medicine, shaping electronic health record and clinical information systems, ensuring privacy and the security of health information, and helping clinical teams use digital devices and new technologies to serve more patients.
Our graduates work in:
- Hospitals
- Insurance companies
- Government agencies
- Health IT software companies
$62,000
MEDIAN STARTING SALARY AT GRADUATION
Personalize your degree to meet your goals
Select electives that reflect your particular focus, whether it’s data science, programming languages, or health information security. The right classes can help you acquire skills to develop home health software, or to specialize in clinical research informatics or become proficient in implementing health care information systems.
Plan of study
These plans of study are intended for full-time students. Part-time students should take whatever courses are available each semester.
Project track
- INFO I501 Introduction to Informatics (Fall or Spring)
- INFO B530 Foundations of Health Informatics (Fall)
- INFO B535 Clinical Information Systems (Fall or Spring)
- INFO B581 Health Informatics Standards and Terminology (Spring)
- INFO B583 Security and Privacy Policies (Spring)
- INFO B642 Clinical Decision Support Systems (Spring)
- INFO B505 Informatics Project Management (Fall)
- INFO B691 Project in Health Informatics (Fall, Spring, or Summer)
- INFO B626 Human Factors Engineering for Health Informatics
- Elective
- Elective
- Elective
Thesis track
- INFO I501 Introduction to Informatics (Fall or Spring)
- INFO B530 Foundations of Health Informatics (Fall)
- INFO B535 Clinical Information Systems (Fall or Spring)
- INFO B581 Health Informatics Standards and Terminology (Spring)
- PBHL B561 Introduction to Biostatistics I or INFO B518 Statistical Methods for BioHealth Informatics (Fall or Spring)
- INFO B642 Clinical Decision Support Systems (Spring)
- INFO I575 Informatics Research Design (Fall, Spring, or Summer)
- INFO B691 Thesis (Fall, Spring, or Summer)
- INFO B585 Biomedical Analytics
- Elective
- Elective
- Elective
Students may use the summer for a variety of purposes, such as elective courses, thesis preparation, and project research.
Sample elective options
Other elective courses are possible upon approval of the faculty. Some elective courses may have prerequisites. Students should check with instructors before enrolling.
Informatics
- INFO B512 Scientific and Clinical Data Management
- INFO B551 Independent Study
- INFO B573 Programming for Science Informatics
- INFO B578 Data Administration: Clinical Administration Decision Making
- INFO B582 Health Information Exchange
- INFO B585 Biomedical Analytics
- INFO B605 Social Foundations of Informatics
- INFO B641 Business of Health Informatics
- INFO B643 Natural Language Processing
- INFO I590 Topics in Informatics
- LIS S644 Consumer Health Informatics
- NEWM N504 Advanced Interactive Design Applications
- INFO H541 Interaction Design Practice
- INFO H543 Interaction Design Methods
- INFO H561 Meaning and Form in HCI
Computer science
- CSCI 503 Operating Systems
- CSCI 504 Concepts in Computer Organization
- CSCI 506 Management of Software Develop. Process
- CSCI 507 Object-Oriented Design and Program
- CSCI 541 Database Systems
- CSCI 550 Computer Graphics
- CSCI 552 Advanced Graphics and Visualization
- CSCI 565 Programming Language
Other
- LIS S532 Information Architecture for the Web
- SOC R551 Quantitative Methods – Sociology
- STAT 524 Applied Multivariate Statistics
- Grad 660 Clinical Research Methods
- Grad 661 Clinical Trials
- NURS 607 Nursing Advanced Statistics
Learning outcomes
Upon completion of the Master of Health Informatics, students attain the following competencies expected of practitioners in the discipline:
Fundamental professional and interdisciplinary skills:
- Analyze problems: Analyze, understand, abstract, and model a specific biomedical problem in terms of their data, information, and knowledge components.
- Produce solutions: Use the analysis to identify and understand the space of possible solutions and generate designs that capture essential aspects of solutions and their components.
- Implement, evaluate, and refine: Carry out the solution (including obtaining necessary resources and managing projects), evaluate it, and iteratively improve it.
- Innovate: Create new theories, typologies, frameworks, representations, methods, and processes to address biomedical informatics problems.
- Work collaboratively: Team effectively with partners within and across disciplines.
Health and health care systems skills:
- Understand the fundamentals of the field in the context of the effective use of biomedical data, information, and knowledge.
- For substantive problems related to scientific inquiry, problem solving, and decision making, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create solutions based on biomedical informatics approaches.
- Apply, analyze, evaluate, and relate biomedical information, concepts, and models spanning molecules to individuals to populations.
- Analyze and evaluate complex biomedical informatics problems in terms of data, information, and knowledge.
Technological skills:
- Apply, analyze, and create data structures, algorithms, programming, mathematics, statistics.
- Apply, analyze, and create technological approaches in the context of biomedical problems.
- Apply and evaluate methods of inquiry and criteria for selecting and using algorithms, techniques, and methods to solve substantive health informatics problems.
Human and social context:
Health Informatics recognizes that people are the end users of biomedical information, draws on the social and behavioral sciences to inform the design, development, and evaluation of technical solutions, policies, and economic, ethical, social, educational, and organizational systems.
The above learning outcomes are guided by this article:
Kulikowski, C. A., Shortliffe, E. H., Currie, L. M., Elkin, P. L., Hunter, L. E., Johnson, T. R., … & Smith, J. W. (2012). AMIA Board white paper: definition of biomedical informatics and specification of core competencies for graduate education in the discipline. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 19(6), 931-938.
