Health Informatics – Online Schools & Degree Programs

Health Informatics is an umbrella term that describes the use of information technology (IT) in the service of the health care and human services. Essentially, health informatics encompasses the electronic storage, maintenance, and retrieval of data pertaining to patient details and medical records. The goal of health informatics is to utilize modern technology to make relevant information as easily accessible as possible, often making a vital difference in crucial medical decisions. Health informatics is a relatively young field, having come about as the result of the invention of the microchip in the 1950s. It is also a rapidly expanding field, with many opportunities for creative individual with strong IT skills to make a positive difference in the health are industry.

Duties

There are several different career paths within the scope of health informatics. In general, a health informatics specialist employed by a health organization such as a hospital, for example, will be responsible for providing technical support for staff members, designing new database systems, evaluating the accuracy of data and the efficiency of the overall system, and recommending new equipment for purchase. Larger health care industry associations such as insurance companies and medical research laboratories might employ several health informatics specialists to oversee separate elements of the database system. The exact duties of the health informatics professional depends entirely on their area of specialization. Currently the follow areas of specialization are common in health informatics:

• Bioinformatics – A subset of health informatics that focuses on the sharing and use of biomedical information, which includes chemical informatics, nursing informatics, and dental informatics.
• Public Health Informatics – As the title implies, public health informatics specialists utilize information technology to provide public access to medical research and contribute to public knowledge of health.
• Organizational Informatics – A specialist in organizational informations works within a large organization or with two or more organizations to create a bridge between disparate databases and medical records.
• Social Informatics – A specialist that studies the social affect of information technology and computer science.
• Clinical Informatics – A specialization that is concerned primarily with the use of technology in the service of clinical research. Clinical informatics specialists may work with patients, designing programs that provide at-home education about treatment.

Education and Background

With the rise of health informatics as an essential part of the health care industry, many schools have begun offering degree courses in the subject. A 4-year Bachelors degree in Health Informatics is the established credential required by most employers, but professionals with a background in IT of any kind can opt to supplement their experience with a certificate in a specialized area of informatics. Certificates typically take about 3 semesters to complete and can often be earned through online coursework. Health Informatics professionals who want to specialize in social or clinical informatics usually pursue a Masters Degree, a 2-year degree course which gives them the opportunity to formulate and research their own ideas about the function of health informatics in society.

Employment Opportunities and Salary

Unlike other information technology professionals, health informatics specialists do not have to worry about their jobs being outsourced. The growing dependency of the health care industry on technology indicates that health informatics will be a lucrative and secure field for many years to come. There is a wide variety of workplaces currently hiring health informatics professionals, including hospitals, insurance companies, research labs, and consulting firms. With the proper background and training, an entry-level health informatics specialist can progress quickly from database administrator to a lucrative systems analyst position. The base pay for a health informatics professional is $30,000 to $50,000 a year, but can increase to over $100,000 as the professional gains more responsibilities and more prestigious job titles.