Dr. Berkovich teaches master’s level courses in Health Care Analytics (HCA) at USD in the Hahn School of Nursing and Health Sciences and Knauss School of Business. She has lectured nationally on population health methods, registries and medical terminologies. Her multi-year collaboration with Amy Sitapati, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer for Population Health, UC San Diego, resulted in a book, Applied Population Health: Driving Value-based Care with Actionable Registries. Dr. Berkovich enjoys online course development and teaching and is engaged in ongoing initiatives to bring the latest software applications and data resources to the classroom.
Do you have any particular areas of interest/specialization related to health care informatics?
Dr. Berkovich’s professional background is focused on the use of the Electronic Medical Record to guide clinical workflows. As a founding member of the UCSD population health team, she developed a variety of tools to drive clinical quality performance. There, she managed a population health team supporting multiple hospitals and community affiliate providers and oversaw 90+ registries to track active patients, payer groups, affiliate members, medications, wellness and chronic diseases. Her local work with the Get to Green quality campaign helped claim nearly $5 million of at-risk incentive payments.
Dr. Berkovich’s PhD research at the University of Texas compared the performance of ICD-9-CM, ICD-10-CM, and SNOMED CT clinical terminologies for the automated selection of disease cohorts.
What motivated your interest in serving on the advisory board for the MS-HCI program? What are you hoping to contribute?
Serving as an author and question editor for the AMIA Health Informatics Certification Review Course (ARC) provided a grounding on the important topics of national interest in Health Informatics and assessment of professional competencies. Combined with her Master’s in Education, she is well qualified to lead program development addressing the evolving science of health informatics to USD students.
What advice do you have for anyone interested in advancing their career in health care informatics?
Whether you’re starting your informatics journey today or have decades of experience, the learning never stops. This is a great career for people who love innovation.
In your view, what is unique and exciting about USD’s MS-HCI program? How is the advisory board helping to shape the future of the program to best meet the goals of both the students and their potential employers?
The program has a long history of hiring and collaborating with local experts for the development of course content and instruction. The advisory board ensures that USD has a pulse on the rapid evolution of health practices and can introduce those to students in a nimble fashion. The student practicums also give students and potential employers an opportunity to learn from and about each other during a limited, project-oriented engagement.