The primary mission of the Health Informatics Subprogram is to:

1. Train health informatics researchers for academia, industry and research institutes, and
2. Train individuals aspiring to become leaders and visionary administrators responsible for effectively involving information and computational systems in health care organizations.

Subprogram Description

Health Informatics is aimed towards improving the utilization of health care-related data, information, and knowledge in support of health care research, education, and practice. It is concerned with processes influencing the creation, organization, and manipulation of health information in varying user contexts, such as patients seeking to become more informed about diseases, physicians evaluating treatment alternatives, clinicians conducting controlled studies comparing interventions, nurses using standardized schemes to represent patient contexts and regional health organizations monitoring public health.

Health Informatics is strongly influenced and directed by developments in computing as well as in the socioeconomic context of health care. Health informatics initiatives are typically interdisciplinary involving collaborations among disciplines such as the health sciences, engineering, computer science, information sciences, mathematics, education, law, management sciences and statistics. In particular, a strong computational core is a part of the foundation of Health Informatics.

The Health Informatics Subprogram provides flexibility so that students with prior training in the health professions (e.g. medicine, nursing, public health, dentistry, or pharmacy) may establish an essential foundation in the computational areas. At the same time, students with academic backgrounds in computer science, engineering, or information science can establish a foundation in the health sciences.