What is Health Informatics?
Across the world, the convergence of patient data, computer science applications, and the expertise of health professionals, has created a movement geared towards providing higher quality patient care through better management and availability of information. This is the world of health informatics, and in every hospital, clinician’s office, acute and sub-acute care facility, and health-related organization, health informatics has taken on an increasingly important role.
At UIC, we view health informatics as the underlying science fusing together the worlds of health care, information technology and business. Health informatics has become an integral aspect of the patient health care experience, and it plays a significant role in clinical care, nursing, pharmacy, telemedicine, finance/accounting, patient billing, insurance and reimbursement, and more.
Not only does health informatics focus on the implementation and optimization of the information systems that support clinical practice, it forms the communication infrastructure that connects and enables the flow of critical information to and from each of the stakeholders involved in the delivery of care. This is the science that allows for seamless access and control of patient medical records, laboratory results, medications and their administration, staffing, scheduling, supplies, inventory management, and a variety of other essential clinical and business functions.
While some professionals choose to enter the field at the macro-level, developing informatics strategies for hospitals, health entities, or entire health systems, others choose to focus on an area of specialty, such as fulfilling the information technology needs of nurses or pharmacists. It’s this diversity that has created a demand for professionals across the field of health informatics, as well as in the sub-disciplines that comprise it: medical informatics, nursing informatics, pharmacy informatics, clinical informatics, public health informatics, health IT and Health Information Management (HIM).
The University of Illinois at Chicago offers degree programs that allow those interested in the field of health informatics to expand or make a successful transition into this dynamic industry. Our flagship Master of Science in Health Informatics program, along with our Post-Baccalaureate and Post-Master certificate programs, provide access to all levels of the health informatics field.
Health Informatics is made up of several subsets:
