Master of Science in Health Informatics (MSHI)

About the MSHI Program

The online MSHI degree provides a foundation in business components needed to advance health information technologies (health IT). The goal of the online MSHI program is to develop comprehensive knowledge in the methodologies to acquire, store, retrieve, and use of health information in medicine to support healthcare and clinical research enterprises. The online MSHI will teach students who are interested to advance their careers in health informatics. The program is an innovative way to train and inspire inquiring students to pursue health informatics and health IT.

Who

The ideal MSM MSHI student will have a minimum of a Bachelor’s degree, an interest or actively working in an allied health field, IT, or business and seek to work in areas of health informatics, e.g., clinical decision support, health IT, health management, telemedicine, mobile-health, electronic health records (EHR), or consumer health informatics.

What

This 35-credit hour, 14-month, online degree is designed to give working professionals the flexibility to pursue advance training in health informatics by offering comprehensive coursework needed for career advancement. The program offers students a unique combination of courses in a lockstep cohort format in clinical operations & communication, clinical decision support, health IT standards & interoperability, data mining & analytics, big data management, practical applications of machine learning & artificial intelligence (ML & AI), business fundamentals, and real world learning experiences through a hands on technical capstone practicum.

Why

Health informatics uses IT to organize and analyze health records to improve healthcare outcomes. This discipline has been around for 30+ years, but the rate of growth of this market increased largely due to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which was signed into law in 2009. This law includes the Health Information and Technology for Economic Clinical Health Act (HITECH). HITECH formulated the Meaningful Use (MU) program under the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). MU incentivizes or mandates providers to use EHR by financially rewarding them when demonstrating their use and penalizing them if not used. Equally important are the implications of ARRA/HITECH and MU for health policymaking, clinical practice and their use as tools to measure population health, health outcomes and develop interventions aimed at reducing health disparities.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the field of health informatics is estimated to grow at a rate > 25% every 10 years, which is 7% higher than the average rate of job growth. This results in the creation of 50,000 new jobs every year. It is estimated that this market will exceed $100 billion by 2022. Hence, the health informatics workforce is one of the fastest growing sectors (Bureau of Labor Statistics). The infrastructure supporting this industry aims to improve healthcare quality, decrease medical errors, reduce health disparities, and advance delivery of patient-centered care to the historically underserved.

When

Online Course Calendar 2021-2022

	Start Date	Finish Date	Final Grades Posted
Fall 2021 (Terms I & II)	Monday, Aug. 23 Monday, Oct. 18	Friday, Oct. 15 Friday, Dec. 10	Oct. 20 Dec. 15
Spring 2022 (Terms I & II)	Monday, Jan. 3 Monday, Feb. 28	Friday, Feb. 25 Friday, April 22	March 2 April 27
Summer 2022 (Terms I & II)	Monday, May 2 Monday, June 27	Friday, June 24 Friday, Aug. 19	June 29 Aug. 24
Fall 2022 (Terms I & II)	Monday, Aug. 22 Monday, Oct. 17	Friday Oct. 14 Friday, Dec. 9	Oct. 19 Dec. 14

Scheduled Breaks

Winter Break: 12/12/21— 01/02/22
Spring Break: 4/24/22 — 5/1/22

Deadlines

Fall 2021 Cohort

A new cohort will begin each fall semester. Applications for Fall 2021 cohort are due July 16, 2021. Fall 2021 cohort deadlines:

Applications open – Jan. 1

Applications close – July 16

Classes begin – Aug. 24

Online Education and Expanded Programs

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