Idaho State University College of Business to offer health informatics degree in Meridian and Pocatello

The Idaho State University College of Business is offering a new Master of Science in Health Informatics degree on the Pocatello and Meridian campuses in fall of 2016.

The College of Business’ newest health-related program will be consistent with the statewide initiative for education in the health professions and with Idaho’s first four-year medical school, the Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine set to open at the ISU-Meridian Health Science Center in August of 2018.

Health Informatics involves developing efficient application software and methods for medical professionals’ use of information technologies within their fields while still maintaining and overseeing the challenges of maintaining confidentiality among patient information kept in electronic medical records.

The new MSHI program will require a total of 36 credit hours. Courses in the two locations will consist of on-site classroom learning and distance-learning courses broadcast across campuses. All courses will be available in the evening.

As part of the initiative in building the program, the College of Business has brought on three new faculty members. Dr. Sankara Srinivasan comes to the CoB specializing in mobile healthcare applications and the use and impact of health informatics systems on the performance of individuals, teams and organizations in the health profession. Dr. Karoly Bozan is a specialist in electronic medical records with over a decade of experience working as a consultant with Accenture PLC implementing a large-scale ERP system. Dr. Nima Kordzadeh, is a specialist of consumer health informatics and privacy issues helping to improve patient care through health data analytics and bettering patient-centered online health applications.    

The new MSHI program will provide the two regions with more opportunities within the technological aspects of the healthcare professions. The program will also help address a critical shortage of graduates with skills spanning both informatics and health care.

In 2013, the average annual salary for graduates in the IT health field was $110,000 with the median salary starting at $95,000, according to the Health Information Management and Systems Society. For those in administrative positions, salaries range from $109,000 to $190,000 annually. In the Boise area, average salaries across all levels of the health informatics fields are just over $91,000.

As a graduate in health informatics, students will have the opportunity to work in a variety of positions such as health informatics application designer, electronic health records specialist, and healthcare IT project manager or as a medical database administrator.

For more information about the program, contact the Director of Graduate Studies, Heidi Wadsworth at mshi@isu.edu or 208.282.2966 or visit http://goo.gl/zuzlTn.