Are you interested in learning more about the growing and advancing field of Health Informatics? If you answered yes, you have come to the right place. Anyone in the process of entering a higher education program needs to educate themselves on that field and the stability within the field before choosing a major. Like many of the newer disciplines that exist today, Health Informatics is a hybrid that links several different fields into one. If you would like to find out how this healthcare specialization links Information Technology, Healthcare and Communications into one discipline to create health IT, read on and find out everything that you need to know.
What is the Concept of This New Discipline?
Decades ago, there were not many technological programs that could be used in healthcare to better health outcomes. As computers were developed and software systems advanced, the need for a formal training program focused solely around health IT became critical. This new formal training program is referred to as Health Informatics. The term applies to concepts and theories that relate practices surrounding the use of technology within the broad field of healthcare. The purpose of using technology to this degree is to achieve better health outcomes by collecting, storing, and retrieving digital data on patients, medical histories and treatments.
Why is Health Informatics Growing So Quickly?
According to the University of South Florida, there is a reason why CareerBuilder.com and other consumer sites have ranked Health Informatics as the number one job opportunity for students who want to be employed in an emerging field. If you are concerned about entering a new discipline, there is no cause for concern. There has been tremendous growth reported in Health Informatics, and this growth is projected to continue to as much as 22% by 2022, based on research conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
With the Center for Disease Control acknowledging how effective digital records have been for improving healthcare outcomes, more and more centers and agencies are adopting things like Electronic Health Records. This adoption is expected to continue, and the government has even required most settings to transition to digital records within a specified period of time. As more public and private centers transition, the need for more professionals in the field will grow.
What Titles Are There in Health Informatics?
There are several different roles you can play in a healthcare setting with a degree in Health Informatics. As a specialist in this hybrid discipline, you can work as a nurse specialist, a medical records technician, a health information clerk, or a clinical informatics director. It is important to sit down and determine what your roles in administration will be as a trained informatics graduate before you begin submitting your applications or setting your career goals. Demand and average salaries vary based on your title and your region.
Related Resource: Healthcare Administrator
Health Informatics is technically a science of using IT in the healthcare field. If you have a passion for information technology but you would like to work in the growing field of healthcare, this could be the perfect path to take to fulfill your dreams while you make a practical move for the future. Set aside time to compare accredited Health Informatics degree programs, look at employment qualifications in certain settings, and then work towards achieving short-term and long-term goals.
