Master of Science in Health Care Informatics
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Your Career in Health Care Informatics
Data and technology — such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning — are driving innovation in health care research, diagnosis, and treatment. But to leverage the tremendous amount of health data that these functions require, the medical field as a whole has turned to health care informaticists.
Health care informatics is one of the fastest-growing careers, as the number of jobs in the field is projected to grow twice compared to overall employment. What’s more, earnings for health informaticists are also above average, with a median salary of $92,810.
Industry insights
57%
Health informatics professionals who hold an advanced degree
Source: HIMSS
341,600
Number of health informatics jobs
Careers in Health Care Informatics
A career in health informatics means helping to shape the future of medicine and contributing to efforts to improve the quality of patient health and ultimately patient outcomes.
Take the Next Step in Your Health Care Informatics Career
Success Stories
The MS-HCI program at USD is a highly ranked master’s degree program. I selected the program because it was the best fit for my working schedule. The uniqueness of the program is due to its cross-disciplinary model with faculty members from healthcare, business, engineering, and computer science, which prepares students for leadership roles in informatics. The program has prepared me to be a part of a team of professionals who are passionate about creating positive change in the healthcare industry. My MSHCI journey at USD has been an incredible journey beyond my expectations and gave me the necessary knowledge to succeed in my future career.
The Master of Science in Health Care Informatics improved my skills and knowledge toward a successful profession. I will continue building up my knowledge and apply what I learned to my future. USD gave me that chance of making a difference in the community. I recommend the MSHCI program at the University of San Diego as it will lead you to accomplish your goals.
Throughout my 10 plus years in the military. I have learned that having pride in what you do, and commitment to the people you work with are what make great memories and a forever sense of family connection. Not only does the University of San Diego epitomize these values, but the academic team represents them in everything they do. During my time in the program, I experienced staff who placed their students first and apply real world practices for the best learning environment. The staff does whatever it takes to align their vision with the student’s visions and goals on a continuous basis.
I chose this program because of the timeline of completing along with being associated with HIMSS. I also was drawn to the program as it is 100% online which allowed me to navigate my work-school-life balance. The faculty for all my classes were excellent and engaged spectacularly with not just me but all my colleagues online. I would recommend this program to anyone looking to solidify their career in healthcare IT and to become more versed in applying the skills they have already to enhance healthcare staff skills, organizational health technology, and become a more valuable asset for their teams.
Everything I am learning in this program is relevant to my job. I am very happy that I am able to use the knowledge gained from these courses into my work. I have every confidence that this degree will shape me into the best healthcare administrator I can be.
I graduated from USD with my Master’s in Healthcare Informatics in 2019. USD’s program provided a strong foundation to build the skills needed for the industry. As I entered the workforce, I felt quite prepared to understand the content and be able to meet client-related needs. I would also like to add that the faculty has been an amazing source of strength and support. Being an online student, I never felt any lack of resources. I will always be grateful to Dr. Jonathan Mack and the team for giving me a solid base to enter the field of healthcare Informatics.
I highly recommend the USD Health Care Informatics online master’s degree. The program was flexible with my full-time work schedule and provided me with an opportunity to learn and improve my skillset in health care. More than just an education, it provided me with a solid foundation for becoming a health care leader.
Earning my MS-HCI degree from the University of San Diego is hands down one of the best things that I have done with my life. It has opened so many doors for me and my professional career. Before enrolling at USD, I was unsure what I wanted to do professionally and I started exploring the possibility of starting something new from scratch. Even before I graduated I had already landed a job in the field after 15 years of feeling stuck in the pharmaceutical industry. I love what I do now and I am glad that I decided to go back to school. I recommend the program to anybody who is looking to switch fields or do something different in healthcare.
I chose USD’s MS-HCI program because of the intimate online class settings, easy-to-use online format, and the wide variety of classes within the informatics field. I was pushed to grow during this program, but it remained manageable as I worked full time. During this program, I found it easy to connect with the professors and staff. Our professors seemed to take a “real-world” approach, meaning that most of the projects we worked on could be applied to future jobs or school programs. Every staff member was extremely helpful and accommodating over the past two years. I really appreciate that Dr. Mack was available at any time during this program. After this degree, I am inspired to pursue my PhD in Nursing utilizing an informatics perspective. I look forward to staying in touch with my classmates and professors.
Completing the Health Care Informatics program at USD was the best career decision I have made. As a Clinical Informaticist, I apply what I learned daily. The promotions and positions I have held since graduation are a direct result of being a graduate of the USD program.
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A Career in Health Care Informatics: The Outlook and Options
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is Health Care Informatics?
According to the Public Health Informatics Institute, “Informatics is the process by which raw data turns into information and, subsequently, knowledge.” The past decade has been a time of incredible growth for the field of health informatics, fueled in large part by the adoption in 2009 of the federal HITECH Act, which mandated a nationwide transition from old-fashioned paper medical records to electronic health records (EHR). Of course, the adoption of electronic health records, along with advancements in cloud storage and analytics capabilities, has led to far greater availability (and sharability) of health data. In the continually evolving field of health informatics, the goal is to use this data and the insights it produces to:
- Improve patient care at the individual and clinical level
- Improve the health of entire populations (for example, by using data to predict and even prevent outbreaks of disease in a particular geographical area)
You can learn more about the practice of Health Informatics, as well as the career potential in the field, by reading this blog post: What is Health Informatics? [Definition + Jobs and Salary Information]
Another good resource is this post: Opportunities in Health Informatics are Vast for Those with a Master’s Degree.
What does this degree program prepare me to do?
Jobs in health informatics typically require a hybrid skill set of both health care knowledge and information technology (IT) capabilities. In developing our Master of Science in Health Care Informatics program at USD, we looked at all the big health informatics master’s programs available, and what those programs provided students. We discovered that many degree programs were purely technical and didn’t prepare students for leadership or management roles. That’s why we decided to create a graduate degree program that offers both technical training and professional development. Half of the classes in the Master of Science in Health Care Informatics program at USD are health administration classes, which include critical leadership, strategy and policy classes.
Where do graduates typically find employment upon graduation?
Graduates of our program are employed both locally (in the southern California market) and nationally with hospitals, clinics, medical devices companies, health insurance companies and data/analytic companies. They are employed as clinical analysts, data management professionals, clinical information systems specialists, EHR implementation managers, in managerial roles and in marketing and sales for medical device companies.
What’s the Difference Between Health Informatics and Nursing Informatics?
Nursing informatics is a subspecialty of nursing and falls under the broader health informatics umbrella. Nursing informatics deals directly with patient care and is geared toward nurses who want to improve patient safety through the use of computer science, information technology and nursing science. You can read more details about the program differences in this blog post.
If you’re a nurse, you can choose whether to advance your studies with an MSN in Nursing Informatics, or an MS in Health Care Informatics. If you plan to continue working in a patient-facing role, you might find that the MSN provides more growth opportunities with your current employer (and even a bump in pay, depending on your union contract). If you are moving away from a clinical role and find that you enjoy functions such as data analytics and information technology, you may find that the MS in Health Care Informatics will serve you quite well. One important note: at University of San Diego, the MSN program is only offered in the traditional campus-based format, whereas the MS program is offered both online and on campus.
What is the Next Step?
If you would like to learn more or take the next step towards enrollment, speak with a USD enrollment adviser who can answer all of your questions and offer more insight into this cutting-edge program.