Clinical Informatics, Master's

Gain the tools needed to apply informatics approaches to enhance your professional skills.

The 34-credit M.S. in Clinical Informatics was created for physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses, pharmacists, other healthcare professionals, biologists, and computer scientists who are committed to improving the quality of care provided to patients by analyzing information collected by healthcare organizations. The M.S. in Clinical Informatics is organized around two 12-credit graduate certificates in Clinical Informatics and Data Science, along with hands-on practicums and conferences. The program is a joint effort between the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB) and the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). The core faculty are physicians from the School of Medicine who are board certified in Clinical Informatics, assisted by other faculty with training in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Science, and Epidemiology. Our curriculum focuses on biomedical data, clinical processes, and computational systems, which students will apply to the practice of medicine, in order to enhance health outcomes, improve patient care, and strengthen the clinician-patient relationship. The program also covers the latest data science tools, machine learning techniques, and methods for big data processing. Coursework will also address leadership, professionalism, ethics, governance, bias, equity, and social determinants of health. Note: This program is not eligible for F-1 or J-1 student visa sponsorship.

Details, Dates & Deadlines

Program Details

Class Format

Hybrid

Program Length

2-5 years

Credits to Complete

Cost/Credit Hour

In State: $783
Out of State: $997

Dates & Deadlines

Fall Deadline: July 1
Spring Deadline: December 1

Students must complete 4 core courses at UMB (12 credits) to complete their graduate certificate in Clinical Informatics. Students will continue their studies, by completing 3 courses (10 credits) in practical activities at UMB, and an additional 4 courses at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (12 credits) to complete a graduate certificate in Data Science, for a total of 34 program credits.

The instruction will be conducted in a hyflex environment. All didactic courses will be accessible online. The practical courses will have both on-site and online options.

Program Completion Timeline

The degree is designed for completion within 3 years academic years, but students are allowed up to 5 years to complete the program. Participants can start the program in the fall or spring semester.

Courses:

INFO 601 Foundations in Clinical and Health Informatics
INFO 602 Clinical Information Systems
INFO 603 Computer Literacy for Healthcare Professionals
INFO 604 Decision Support Systems in Healthcare
DATA 601 Introduction to Data Science
DATA 602 Introduction to Data Analysis and Machine Learning
DATA 603 Platforms for Big Data Processing
DATA 604 Data Management
INFO 610 Clinical Informatics Conference
INFO 611 Clinical Informatics Practicum
INFO 612 Advanced Clinical Informatics Practicum

By the completion of the M.S. in Clinical Informatics, students will develop core competencies in four key areas: foundations and theory, clinical decision making and care process improvement, health information systems, and leadership and change management, as defined by the American Medical Informatics Association.

Graduates will walk away with the following competencies, and more:

Describe the key concepts of Clinical Informatics, Nursing Informatics, Pharmacy Informatics, and Clinical Research Informatics.
Analyze key concepts, models, and theories of informatics
Analyze quality improvement efforts regarding safety, effectiveness, efficiency, patient-centeredness, timeliness, and equity.
Understand the nature and cognitive aspects of human decision making.
Understand evidence-based medicine, evidence sources, evidence grading, implementation of guidelines, and information retrieval and analysis
Build effective of interdisciplinary leadership teams and communication strategies.
Critically evaluate health information systems applications by type of functionality, setting where systems are used, telehealth capabilities, and relationship to the electronic health record.
Understand computer systems, including programming, control structures, data structures, software development methods, computing architectures, networking, security, data management, data manipulation, and data sharing.
Analyze approaches to human factors engineering.

The knowledge and skills in Clinical Informatics are crucial to future success in patient care, biomedical research, and public health, as well as to health policy design and implementation The American Medical Informatics Association (www.amia.org) estimates that 70,000 trained specialists are needed in the near future to support these efforts, with other estimates in 2018 as high as 150,000 specialists.

Physicians who specialize in Clinical Informatics assess the information needs of providers and patients, analyze clinical processes, and implement clinical information systems. They provide leadership and expertise in the procurement, customization, development, implementation, management, evaluation, and continuous improvement of clinical information systems. They work with a large range of computational systems, including electronic health record systems, decision-support systems, practice management tools, imaging systems, clinical research systems, public health systems, and genomic systems. They find employment as Chief Medical Information Officers, researchers, educators, and in industry, all of which are in high demand.

The 34-credit M.S. in Clinical Informatics is organized around a graduate certificate in Data Science from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, our 12-credit graduate certificate Clinical Informatics, along with 10 credits of hands-on practicums and conferences.

If you aren't ready to commit to a master's program, begin your studies with our 12-credit graduate certificate Clinical Informatics. This certificate program can be completed in 9 months and your credits can be applied to the MS in Clinical Informatics at a later date.

Next Steps

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