I'm thinking of either persuing a masters in MSIA or MSIH from DSU I''m looking to get some opinions on Master of Science in Health Informatics especially in what the demand will be for the future. Is this a good field to get into? vs MSIA?
Note sure how valuable either would be without experience, but security skills would be applicable to any industry whereas with HI you'd be limited to the healthcare field.
My girlfriend works in healthcare and her company is putting her through the Masters in Healthcare Informatics at Northeastern. She has just under 10 years experience in the industry and says her classmates have similar backgrounds. Her pay after the degree will likely pump up to the mid-$100k range, about a 30% increase. Its certainly a growing field currently with more jobs than degree holders. If you're certain you want to work in healthcare I think the MSHI degree is a good idea, if not I wouldn't waste my time. I also agree with dlcurious, experience will always trump the degree you hold.
I work in healthcare IT and most folks working in HI that I've seen have a clinical background, typically as RN's. There are other components of EMR systems that may require additional knowledge and / or experience, for example, one company required those supporting their pharmacy component to hold a PharmD.
I don't have a solid grasp on how all of this works, but my girlfriend is employed by Partners Healthcare as a project specialist supporting one of the Boston area hospitals. No clinical background for her what-so-ever. She has a degree in Psychology from Holy Cross and worked for Meditech for two years before moving over to partners. I am friendly with several of her co-workers and none of them have clinical backgrounds either.
