Touro Univ. International MS in Health Infomation Management - Informatics

I am planning for a online masters program in health informatics.

I am thinking of doing this from Touro University international, I read that it is an accredited institution, but I did not find more information about the MS in health informatics program.

How does this program rank? Are the courses good and sufficient for me to land into a good job.

Are there any other good Universities you can suggest where I can do this program.

Thanks in advance.

 

I don't know much about this univ in particular. However you should look up geteducated.com for more info. Also chec up the UMUC site.

 

Public Health Informatics program

There is a 100% online program in Public Health Informatics offered at University of Illinois at Chicago. You can earn either a certificate or complete a full Masters in Public Health (MPH).

I am currently a student in their certificate program and have found it to be pretty good. The program uses Blackboard as the communications method. The professors are VERY fond of group projects, so be prepared to collaborate with fellow students from across the country (and world).

I would recommend this program. The website:

http://www.uic.edu/sph/phi/

 

thank you stock and churchill for your reply.
I'll check it out. Churchill can I know your background education please, just want to make sure that I am taking the right decision for my field.

 

My background is a BA in Biology, an MS in Biostatistics, and almost completed (ABD) a PhD in Epidemiology. In general, my employment has been in doing statistical analyses for public health research. However, over the years, I have picked up alot of skills doing database management as a SAS programmer. I thought that I'd supplement my knowledge base by learning something about health information systems and informatics. That's why I applied to the certificate program.

As for the difference between public health informatics, and regular health informatics, I think that the former deals more with systems that monitor the health of populations (i.e. surveillance systems which monitor incidence of various diseases in a state, county, or even a country) vs the latter, which may be a health information system within a hospital, pharmacy, or a laboratory. The two fields are related (PHI and HIS), but fundamentally may differ at the level of the data (population based vs. clinically based).

While I believe that it's a very good program at UIC, I realize that I don't really like alot of health informatics. It's just not for me. Now I have to decide whether to spend some more money to complete the certificate (I'm at the halfway point) just to put it on my resume, or just walk away all the better. I cannot predict whether this is a field that you'd like or not... everyone is different. But you can look at some resources to try and learn more about the field:

The Public Health Informatics Institute

http://www.phii.org/

ASTHO:

http://www.astho.org/?template=public_health_informatics.html

 

There are offerings from British Universities as well.

University of Bath (with two residencies) see: http://www.healthcare-informatics.info/msc.asp?inc=structure

University of Portsmouth see: http://www.disco.port.ac.uk/hcc/hip/outline.htm

University of Wales see: http://www.aber.ac.uk/distance/health.shtml

As JEChurchill notes, there are differences in the speciality areas for health informatics, public health informatics, health information systems, and health information management. Be sure you understand what it is you want to study.

Best wishes----Jim

 

Churchill and stivlyn, Thanks a lot for your reply.

My background is more of clinical, so I think health information will interest me more.
I am actually confused as what to do next, just thinking of alternate ways to improve my skills and job opportunities.

 

I work in healthcare. I am a little confused as to what you want to do: medical informatics, which is the application of computing technology in clinical care; or health information, which is essentially medical records.

Please advise and we may be able to give you some more targeted information.

 

I can help answer your questions, but according to the TOS of I must first provide the following disclosure:

I am a professor at TUI and teach courses in the health informatics program. I also helped to develop the MHI curriculum and courses.

With that said, I hope you will find the following information helpful.

All TUI programs (undergraduate, masters and doctoral) are fully regionally accredited by the Commission on Higher Education for the Middle States Association of Colleges. Students from the Master of Health Informatics (MHI) program have continued on to earn professional certifications such as RHIA, RHIT (AHIMA) and SSCP (ISC2), either during or after completion of the MHI program. There is also a TUI Student Chapter of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), which is a highly recognized professional society (see link below).

http://www.tourou.edu/ache/index.htm

In terms of ranking, I’m not currently aware of anything published for health informatics programs. However, the TUI Master of Health Informatics program is certainly more than sufficient to prepare students for a career as a health informatics professional. I know that students from the program have obtained new jobs or HI positions in their current organization toward the end of or after completion of their MHI studies. The program and courses provide solid coverage of the following areas:

· Fundamentals of data, information and knowledge
· Fundamentals of computer and information systems
· Medical language and terminology systems
· Modeling of medical observations and data
· Medical coding systems and standards
· Medical knowledge and database structures
· Information organization and flows in medical practice
· Quantitative models for medical decision making
· Clinical decision support
· User interfaces and ergonomics in healthcare (emphasis in wireless and point of care systems)
· Health information systems architecture
· Security and confidentiality (includes coverage of HIPAA rules and compliance issues)
· Information security domains, risk analysis, and business continuity planning
· Ethical and legal issues in electronic medical records
· Organizational and sociological issues
· Metrics and methods for evaluating healthcare information systems
· System implementation considerations and project management methods
· Cost and investment issues in healthcare IT

The job market for health informatics professionals is very promising. Health information management is reported to be one of the 20 fastest growing occupations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that more than 47,000 additional health information professionals will be needed by the year 2005. The following link from Monster.com offers a very positive overview of current job opportunities and demand for healthcare informaticians.

http://healthcare.monster.ca/articles/healthcare/

Please let me know if you have any additional questions related to health informatics or TUI’s program. I will be happy to respond by PM or within the forum.

Dr. Thomas Esch

 

Thank you Michael and Dr. Tesch.
Michael I want to do medical informatics, and was concerned about the job opportunities in this field.
I was also considering Health care management and not able to make up my mind which is a better field .

Please guide me in this

 

Whatever happened to this program?

 

Ah, I see now. It is now a concentration under the MS in Health Science program.

 

errr.. I thought TUI was accredited by western states not middle states.

 

It used to be part of Touro College in New York which made it part of the Middle States. When it was sold, TUI switched over to WASC.