Master's in Health Care or Information Technology?

I'm about to begin a Master's degree program, but I'm not quite sure what specialization to pursue. Health care is booming at the moment. However, I have 15 years of IT experience and wonder if I should just improve upon that experience or diversify toward the discipline that has the most employment promise.

Any opinions, folks?

 

You might check out Bears' Guide to the Best MBAs by Distance Learning and find a school that offers both an MBA in Health Care Administration and an MBA in Information Technology. You will probably be able to get the second MBA with just a few add-on specialty courses as you will not need to repeat the common core courses. When I was in City U.'s MBA program (1991-1993), they offered the HCA and IT MBAs, but I'm not sure if they do anymore.

 

Re: Re: Master's in Health Care or Information Technology?

Or, according to the general Bears' Guide, it doth well appear that one can get master's degrees in health information management from Central Queensland University, College of St. Scholastica, University of Manchester, or University of Wales-Aberstwyth.

With, of course, the usual disclaimers that one should never, ever ask a British-system school about "distance-learning" or "thesis-only" graduate degrees, but rather, if anything, "part-time" degrees.

 

Diversify toward the discipline that has the most employment promise -- and this advice comes from someone with pushing 30 years in IT.

One way you can do that diversification and still stay firmly in -- or at least darned close to -- IT is by getting a masters in some form of medical informatics. It seems, based on your thread-starting post, like the natural direction for you to go... or to at least explore.

I'm sure there are other programs, but right off the top of my head, the Oregon Health & Science University's Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology offers a non-thesis, professional, distance-learning Master of Biomedical Informatics (MBI) that seems like it might make some sense for you.

Here's an interesting web page on the NIH web site that talks about an international medical informatics training effort that I reference here strictly for overall, general informational (regarding the subject, generally) purposes; and here's another NIH article about the implementation of a D/L medical informatics program, generally... and here's another.

If you'd prefer to just sort of rest on your IT laurels as they exist today and pursue a masters that will qualify you to take that IT experience into the healthcare administrative area, then a masters in healthcare management and/or administration would make the most sense -- more sense than an MBA, I dare say.

My hands-down favorite masters in that area is the nearly completely distance-learning St. Joseph College of Maine's Master in Health Services Administration. It's a 42-hour distance-learning program with one, teenie, weenie, brief, little summer residency. Of course, that would certainly be hell... what with the college in the woods and on that stinky ol' lake and all. [kidding]

Allegedly, you must already have some significant healthcare experience to enter the program, but I'd not hesitate to petition the head of the program for a waiver... which, if you make a good enough case for yourself, would probably be granted... even if only on a probationary basis, at first.

Touro International University offers a D/L masters degree that would appear to cover both areas that I've mentioned above: Master of Science in Health Sciences - Health Care Management/Health Informatics.

Hope that helps.

 

Thanks for you help, Gregg!

 

I face the same issue. After 25 years in government network development (mostly metropolitan area networks) I took an early retirement but still need to work.

The three areas I consider growth IT opportunities are medical informatics (MI), geographic information systems (GIS), and security/forensics/IT audit.

Each area has good DL recourses. I have chosen to focus on GIS, because of my interest in mapping and the outdoors but MI also looks really good for future employment opportunities. In the US, even President Bush has noted that the medical cost issue could be partly addressed with MI and IT. It’s the same here in Canada. Just a caution on MI programs from outside your jurisdiction; the principles may be the same but the practice may be different. I seem to remember hearing recently that MI in Britain (EU?) is organized differently than North America (probably database issues). You need to be certain what will work in your jurisdiction to make your degree/certificate investment pay off.

One program not noted above (but discussed elsewhere in this board) is U of Illinois at: http://www.uic.edu/sph/phi/

Best wishes---Jim