Skip to content

Program

Health Informatics, MS

Learn More

Related

The Power of Big Data: Career Opportunities in Health Informatics

 |  13 Min Read

Big data holds the keys to solving many of the biggest healthcare challenges today. But harnessing that data is a challenge, as healthcare organizations amass more data than any other industry.1

It’s necessary to look into what health informatics offers as a career pathway and how health informatics jobs compare to other professions that deal with data in healthcare.

What Is Health Informatics?

Health informatics touches every corner of the modern healthcare industry. Health informaticists are essential in improving health and well-being throughout society using data. They can accomplish this by harnessing emerging data practices and innovating to improve patient care, detect and stop the spread of diseases, and find ways to make the healthcare industry more efficient. They achieve these goals by:

  • It enhances healthcare systems that impact decision-making.
  • Mining health data for insights to improve health outcomes.
  • We are innovating health information systems spanning the continuum of care.

Health informatics is central to the gathering, storing, and presenting accurate patient data. Specialists draw from a myriad of sources, including:

  • Electronic health records
  • Health insurance claims
  • Public health organizations
  • Federal agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • Laboratory results
  • Clinical trials
  • Personal health apps
  • Fitbits, Apple Watches, and other fitness trackers

These sources offer a tremendous volume of data — so much that it’s hard for many healthcare professionals and decision-makers to make sense of it. However, health informaticists specialize in more than collecting data. Their expertise also includes analyzing it for insights that lead to better decision-making. Plus, they create intuitive data dashboards to make complex healthcare issues easier to understand.

These initiatives offer benefits beyond improving how healthcare professionals care for individual patients. They also allow public health officials to monitor well-being throughout communities. As a result, health informaticists play a central role in identifying and solving societal health challenges.2

Why Is Health Informatics Important?

As health informaticists create solutions that benefit overall public health, they help fulfill the “triple aim of healthcare.” 3 Through this line of work, health informaticists impact the healthcare system in three crucial ways:

1. Improving the Patient Care Experience

People trust doctors and nurses to help them feel better and stay safe while receiving treatment. Electronic health records make it easier to meet these needs because they give healthcare professionals a window into each patient’s medical history. Health informaticists can organize those records to enable doctors to visualize a patient’s medical history and improve how they manage chronic conditions.

This data is essential to improving the patient care experience. Clinical benefits include using data to pinpoint diseases more quickly and avoid making mistakes when treating patients.4

2. Strengthening Health Across Populations

Data for each patient doesn’t exist in a vacuum. When health informaticists view this data as a whole, they can calculate success rates for various treatments to pinpoint what is and isn’t practical. These analyses provide insights into providing quality care across populations. It also allows informaticists to spot trends like rises in diseases and chronic health conditions.

Health informaticists need access to behavioral data and information about the environments where patients live to get an accurate view of population health. So, many informaticists are partnering with medical and public health leaders to acquire universal data sources.5

Building this comprehensive data infrastructure will show the many factors impacting community well-being. It will also enable health informaticists to guide healthcare professionals toward better treatments for injuries and illnesses.

3. Reducing Healthcare Costs

In 2019, U.S. healthcare spending totaled $3.8 trillion. By 2028, it will increase to $6.2 trillion. At that point, it will represent nearly 20% of the nation’s economy.6 These rising costs will likely cause more Americans to suffer financial distress.

What is health informatics’ role in reversing this trend? Its main contribution is to make healthcare more efficient by eliminating wasteful spending. For instance, informaticists could help cut costs by analyzing records to learn the causes of adverse patient events. Finding those causes could revamp clinician training, helping them avoid making costly mistakes.7 Eliminating mishaps stemming from improper medication use alone could save $42 billion annually.8

The importance of health informatics goes beyond supporting these three aims. It is also central to keeping officials, and the public informed during health crises — as demonstrated throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Data dashboards dedicated to tracking COVID-19 cases have helped people understand the risk of infection within their community. Moreover, since the COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential for health informaticists since they want to make electronic health records more usable by examining human factors engineering principles. Additionally, health informaticists have enabled public health and government officials to make informed decisions about allowing schools and restaurants to reopen.

The wide-scale use of this data shows how health informatics impacts society beyond the healthcare industry. It’s a critical difference between health informatics and another important specialty with a similar name — health information management.

How Health Information Management Expands Your Career Possibilities

Health informatics and information management may seem quite similar based on their names. In addition, health informaticists and health information managers often work together to blur the lines further. But the focuses of these specialties differ considerably, as do the career prospects within each field.

What is health information management? The American Health Information Management Association defines it as the “practice of acquiring, analyzing, and protecting digital and traditional medical information vital to providing quality patient care.” 9

While health informaticists specialize in improving data processes and systems, health information managers focus more on routine data operations. In this way, health informaticists are the architects who devise plans, whereas health information managers use those plans to organize and complete specific tasks. Their work spans many day-to-day job functions, including coding diagnoses, treatment, and procedures for insurance reimbursements, managing patient information in databases, and ensuring data security and compliance with regulations.

Health information management is vital because it gives clinicians access to the data needed to administer care. But its scope is limited when compared to health informatics jobs. That’s because health informaticists’ work extends beyond hospitals and health systems, as they strive to improve healthcare overall by collaborating with:

  • Public health officials
  • Epidemiologists
  • Insurance companies
  • Government agencies

This collaboration has been critical since the COVID-19 pandemic began. For instance, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has partnered with organizations across the health landscape to develop tools for tracking positive cases, hospitalizations, and other data.10

Using informatics to combat COVID-19 doesn’t stop with tracking its spread. Health informaticists also monitor how infections change as more people receive vaccines. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, addressed this point during the American Medical Informatics Association’s virtual symposium in 2020. He said gathering and presenting all data related to COVID-19, whether positive or negative, will provide accurate insights for overcoming this global challenge.11

Fauci’s view puts health informatics at the center of efforts to analyze the wealth of data relating to COVID-19. While this raises health informatics’ profile in the short term, this field was in high demand before the pandemic began. Job growth in this sector will grow 20.5% by 2029.

Organizations will need more people to take an interest in health informatics to meet that demand. Fortunately, graduate-level degree programs offer direct paths to this field for healthcare professionals and those looking to join the healthcare industry.

Career Possibilities Through a Health Informatics Degree

Health informatics jobs vary in description and necessary qualifications. Their responsibilities span every healthcare sector, from the clinical space to the private-sector organizations that support this industry. While health informaticists are growing increasingly crucial across the healthcare industry, those who graduate with a health informatics degree are indeed equipped with skills to find success in other healthcare positions.

This broad focus makes health informatics jobs invite people with numerous professional backgrounds. That includes people who already have an occupation in healthcare, such as physicians, nurses, pharmacists, radiologic technologists, and occupational therapists.

That said, health informatics jobs also appeal to business analysts and computer science professionals. While these careers are outside the healthcare arena, they share the foundational knowledge, skills, and job tasks in health informatics.12 As a result, these professionals have the potential to thrive after they pivot to this rewarding field.

What is health informatics employment like? What is the average health informatics salary? The answers vary by role, as people have multiple opportunities to impact this field. Four career options include:

These managers innovate data-driven systems that will make healthcare more effective. It’s an ideal role for professionals who thrive in the clinical or regulatory space. The average salary is about $95,000 per year.13

This hands-on role involves collaborating with I.T. professionals, nurses, and physicians to find data-driven ways to streamline patient care. These managers often rely on experience as registered nurses to engineer and enhance data systems that improve nursing operations. On average, nursing informatics managers earn $105,000 annually.14

These consultants rely on informatics expertise to improve how healthcare organizations use data. That includes applying emerging trends to enhance E.H.R. systems and training staff to harness new practices. Healthcare informatics consultants earn an average annual salary of about $104,000.15

These analysts are the architects of information networks within hospitals and health systems. They assess the functionality of these systems to make them more intuitive. They also partner with clinical and administrative staff to identify technical solutions to healthcare challenges. The median annual salary for these analysts is about $91,000.16

The Health Informatics Job Market: Lucrative and Robust

Health informatics is a robust, growing field at the nexus of healthcare and technology. Demand, however, varies across the U.S.

States With the Most Vibrant Health Informatics Job Growth

Job markets where demand for health informatics professionals is expanding quickly can be found in regions throughout the U.S., according to job market analytics firm Burning Glass Technologies. Here’s a look at the areas with the most vigorous health informatics job growth.

Northeast and Mid-Atlantic

Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the District of Columbia have high concentrations of healthcare information technology companies contributing to solid job growth. Massachusetts has launched a private-public initiative to strengthen its reputation as a hub for healthcare I.T. innovation.17

In Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri, institutions are engaged in cutting-edge research in informatics. At the same time, job demand also is high in more rural states, like South Dakota, which are innovating in areas such as telemedicine.

Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia are the states that stand out in the South. Two examples of solid informatics activity in the region: Georgia is creating a statewide incubator,18. At the same time, Louisiana has established a network of more than 100 hospitals that share information on healthcare quality and population health measures.19

A focus on informatics and health I.T. in California’s Silicon Valley is echoed by innovative efforts to integrate healthcare data in Oregon20 and Arizona,21 two states with high job demand.

Salaries Are Far Above Average

Health informatics salary potential is excellent. According to Payscale, the average salary for health informatics professionals nationwide is $67,080.22. Some jobs, such as the medical coders required to comply with the new ICD-10 standards (with average wages of up to $50,000), do not require advanced degrees. But the most lucrative health informatics careers require specialized skills from clinical experience and specialized training in technology and business practices. The best-paying health informatics jobs include:

  • For Health Data Standards Leads, the average salary of $156,000
  • For Informatics Specialists, the average salary of $104,000
  • For Nursing Informaticists, the average salary of $100,717
  • For Clinical Informatics Managers, the average salary of $92,819
  • For senior Healthcare Informatics Analysts, the average salary is between $90,000 and $140,000
  • For Clinical Analysts, the average salary of $68,823
  • For Clinical Informatics Specialists, the average salary of $68,707
  • For Health Informatics Specialists, the average salary is between $61,050 and $123,000

The Skills You Need

A Burning Glass analysis of job listings for the health informatics careers that require advanced degrees indicates that a broad range of high-level skills is in high demand. These skills are generally obtained only with a graduate-level degree. Health informatics professionals should have some combination of these skills under their belt to expand their career outlook:

  • Data analysis
  • Business administration
  • Project management
  • Data management
  • Information systems
  • Business intelligence
  • Management consulting

Employers in the health informatics field also are looking for individuals who are good communicators, researchers, and problem solvers.

The University of Scranton: At the Cutting Edge

The University of Scranton’s online Master of Science in Health Informatics program is at the cutting edge of this emerging field. The program’s faculty includes top-tier professionals whose firsthand experience in solving complex healthcare problems can help you become the health informatics expert your organization needs. Students interested in joining the field of health informatics may also be interested in the M.H.A.: Health Informatics Specialization or the Graduate Certificate in Health Informatics. Request more information about The University of SScranton’sonline M.S. in Health Informatics program or speak with a Program Manager at 866-373-9547.

References:

  1. Kent, J. (2018). “Big Data to See Explosive Growth, Challenging Healthcare Organizations.”Health I.T. Analytics. https://healthitanalytics.com/news/big-data-to-see-explosive-growth-challenging-healthcare-organizations
  2. Gadd, C. S., Steen, E. B., Caro, C. M., Greenberg, S., Williamson, J. J., & Fridsma, D. B. (2020). “Domains, Tasks, and Knowledge for Health Informatics Practice: Results of a Practice Analysis.”JAMIA, 27(6), 845–852. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocaa018
  3. Sheikh, A., Sood, H. S., & Bates, D. W. (2015). “Leveraging Health Information Technology to Achieve the ‘Triple Aim”of Healthcare Reform.”JAMIA, 22(4), 849–856. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocv022
  4. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (O.N.C.). (2019). “Improved Diagnostics & Patient Outcomes.” https://www.healthit.gov/topic/health-it-and-health-information-exchange-basics/improved-diagnostics-patient-outcomes
  5. Gamache, R., Kharrazi, H., & Weiner, J. P. (2018). “Public and Population Health Informatics: The Bridging of Big Data to Benefit Communities.”Yearbook of Medical Informatics, 27(1), 199–206. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6115205/
  6. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (2020). “THE Fact Sheet, 2019.” https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/NHE-Fact-Sheet
  7. Islam, M. M., Poly, T. N., & Li, Y. J. (2018). “Decent Advancement of Clinical Information Systems: Opportunities and Challenges.”Yearbook of Medical Informatics, 27(1), 83–90. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6115226/
  8. World Health Organization. (2019.) “W.H.O. Calls for Urgent Action to Reduce Patient Harm in Healthcare.” https://www.who.int/news/item/13-09-2019-who-calls-for-urgent-action-to-reduce-patient-harm-in-healthcare
  9. American Health Information Management Association. (2020). “Health Information is Human Information.” https://www.ahima.org/certification-careers/certifications-overview/career-tools/career-pages/health-information-101/
  10. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (O.N.C.). (2020). “”OVID-19 Response.””https://www.healthit.gov/coronavirus
  11. Jercich, Kat. (2020.) Healthcare I.T. News. “Fauci Touts Importance of Data Sharing Amidst COVID-19 Vaccine News.” https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/fauci-touts-importance-data-sharing-amidst-covid-19-vaccine-news.
  12. Fridsma D. B. (2019). “Strengthening our profession by defining clinical and health informatics practice.”JAMIA, 26(7), 585. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocz060
  13. PayScale. (n.d.). “Average Clinical Informatics Manager Salary.”https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Clinical_Informatics_Manager/Salary
  14. PayScale. (n.d.). “Average Nursing Informatics Specialist Salary.”https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Nursing_Informatics_Manager/Salary
  15. ZipRecruiter. (2021). “Healthcare Informatics Consultant.”https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Healthcare-Informatics-Consultant-Salary
  16. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2020). “Occupational Outlook Handbook: Computer Systems Analysts.” https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/computer-systems-analysts.htm#tab-1
  17. Healthcare Innovation. (2021). “Massachusetts Launches Digital Health Innovation Hub Initiative.” http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/news-item/massachusetts-launches-digital-health-innovation-hub-initiative
  18. The University of Georgia Today. (2016). “informatics symposium at U.G.A. draws nearly 150 participants.”https://news.uga.edu/releases/article/informatics-symposium-participants-2016/
  19. Healthcare Innovation. (2014). “Big Data Opportunities Set to Expand in Louisiana.” http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/article/big-data-opportunities-set-expand-louisiana
  20. Healthcare Innovation. (2016). “Oregon to Develop Quality Metrics Registry, Provider Directory, Common Credentialing.” http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/article/oregon-develop-quality-metrics-registry-provider-directory-common-credentialing
  21. Healthcare Innovation. (2020). “Arizona HIE Strategic Plan Addresses 9 Categories of Opportunity for Growth.” http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/news-item/arizona-hie-integration-plan-supported-regional-behavioral-health-authorities
  22. Payscale. (2021). “Average Health Informatics Specialist Salary.”https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Health_Informatics_Specialist/Salary

Recommended Articles

View All

On This Page

Get Started

Back to Top