The MS/CS concentration in Health Informatics is suggested for individuals who wish to pursue a career in health information systems. The health industry represents a huge and growing sector of the global economy. Within the United States, the aging baby boom generation is now entering retirement. Globally there are huge challenges for example in Africa with delivery of health services, due to HIV/AIDS and potentially other pandemics. There are huge untapped opportunities for front-end IT development in this area, for example, using mobile devices. At the same time, there are huge challenges in this area. Privacy is a major issue, as reflected for example by the HPPA act in the US. The MS/CS concentration in health informatics places particular emphasis on:

Knowledge discovery and data mining. The workflow of healthcare organizations involves the generation and collection of various kinds of data relating to clinical practices, clinical trials, patient information, resource administration, policies and research. Traditionally, statistical techniques are used to derive some operational information from the data. Data mining methods provide the opportunity to derive, in an exploratory manner, valuable healthcare knowledge in terms of associations, sequential patterns, classifications, predictions and symbolic rules. Such inductively derived healthcare knowledge can not only provide strategic insights into the practical delivery of healthcare, but also significantly impact other areas of health informatics. For example, adverse reactions to medical pharmaceuticals are one of the leading causes of hospitalisation and death. Data mining techniques can complement existing systems for reporting spontaneous adverse drug reactions.

Privacy. There is increasing emphasis on protecting the privacy of the individuals and organisations represented in health databases. Organisations are increasingly subject to privacy legislation and codes of practice which limit what information they can release. The use of mobile devices by staff and clinicians, and data mining, are only two examples of the special challenges that privacy poses for informatics.

Health informatics. This course covers the history of health informatics, including discussions of protocols and standards such as OSI, UDEF and HL7, review of information access and evaluation, health care terminology and health care economics, and looks at system selection and evaluation in the areas of telemedicine, dental informatics, consumer health informatics, and hospital/clinical informatics. Special attention is given to web services and mobile computing as they relate to the health care industry. The course includes extensive readings and an implementation-based feasibility study for a client-based scenario.

You will obtain a basic grounding in data management, including database management systems, privacy and data mining. You will obtain a background in distributed application development, including service oriented architecture (SOA). The courses in SOA are a prerequisite for a course in health informatics, where you will learn about technologies and issues specific to the health industry, as well as develop a term project that builds on the skills set that you have developed.

If you follow this study plan, you will graduate with:

• a Master of Science in Computer Science, and
• a Graduate Certificate in Health Informatics.

Core Courses

If you have already taken a course in database management systems, for example as an undergraduate computer science major, you may substitute an elective for that course with the approval of the graduate advisor. You may also wish to substitute CS 522 Mobile and Pervasive Computing for CS 549 Distributed Systems, or take both courses.

Suggestions for Elective Courses

Sample Study Plan - Part Time

^*: Alternative course SOC 641 Distributed Application Development.

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