Rabb offers new master’s in Health and Medical Informatics

Program will prepare students to bring health system fully into digital age

Integrating the use of electronic health records throughout the healthcare system will improve safety and efficiency, as well as access to medical care and even to insurance coverage. But bringing the nation’s thousands of physicians, hospitals and other health centers fully into the digital age will require an additional 50,000 new information technology jobs. A new Health and Medical Informatics master’s degree program offered exclusively online at Brandeis University will help prepare individuals for such jobs.

“Graduates of the Health and Medical Informatics Program will possess the knowledge and skills needed to integrate advanced digital technologies into the field of healthcare,” said John Glaser, Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Partners Healthcare and an advisor to the Brandeis program.

“For example, electronic exchange of clinical data among physicians and hospitals will decrease the risk of abnormal test results falling through the cracks while at the same time improving patient access to doctors,” said Glaser. The federal government is providing hospitals and health professionals with substantial financial incentives through Medicaid and Medicare to fully integrate digital technologies starting next year.

“Brandeis has taken a leadership role in educating IT professionals since 1996 and adding this new master’s program will help the country achieve its objective,” said program director Cynthia Phillips. Students in the new program, which will launch in September, will gain skills and knowledge in areas that address four main federal targets for improvement in healthcare: quality, safety, efficiency, and access.

“The new Brandeis health and medical informatics master’s program is specifically designed to prepare workers to help the health system smoothly and efficiently meet these overall goals,” Phillips said. “Our graduates will be engaged in this process at every level—from training and troubleshooting to configuring complex digital systems for individual hospitals and physician practices.”

The new program is the seventh offered in the Rabb School of Continuing Studies, Division of Graduate Professional Studies (GPS). The other graduate professional programs are Software Engineering, Management of Projects and Programs, Information Assurance, Virtual Team Management and Communications, Information Technology Management and Bioinformatics. Programs are offered via both distance learning and campus-based classes. The distance learning programs allow students outside the immediate Boston area to access the high quality educational experience for which Brandeis is known.