Public health informatics specialists are professionals that apply information technology systems to enhance and optimize public healthcare. They do database management, data analysis, development and maintenance of applications and programs, and assist other professionals in the public health sector to use these systems and appreciate the data provided.
Think you’d enjoy public health jobs? Are you interested in medical informatics? Public health informatics careers can satisfy your interest in both fields. Use these tips to learn more about working with health information technology and public health.
- Education: The road to becoming a public health informatics specialist can be achieved through many different ways and means. Each education path involves earning one or more different public health degrees; if your schedule is already very busy, then you may want to take advantage of one of the many great online learning opportunities that are available. The conventional way is to earn a bachelor’s degree in an IT, health program, or if your school offers it, a health information technology program. This is a four year program that will prepare you for the next step, which is earning a master’s degree. Government health units will normally hire professionals and specialists with at least a master’s degree. This advanced study is better if it is focused on information technology, MIS, MSN or MBA. Obviously, after the master’s degree, getting a PhD in the field is always a good idea. Nevertheless, any person with a master’s degree can easily land health informatics jobs.
For health professionals and clinicians like doctors and nurses, entering the public health informatics arena is slightly easier and can be accomplished in a shorter amount of time. These professionals can transition to the career by earning a master’s degree in IT or taking an accredited IT program from a community college that trains them in managing information systems in health care.
- Certifications: A public health informatics specialist will need to have certain certifications to land the job. This will entail passing a civil service examination to enable public and government employment. Aside from these, the person would be better off attaining certain IT certifications such as CCNA, CISSP and PMP. These certifications will be more appealing to the employer, which may convert into higher pay.
- Skills: Aside from the typical education background and certifications, the profession requires specific skill sets. For instance, the profession will be dealing with IT and its relationship in improving public health services. This being said, a public health informatics specialist will need to have an excellent grasp and understanding of most software and applications relevant to healthcare, not to mention all the hardware involved. The profession will require a person to be organized and an expert in analysis and research. Aside from these skills, the specialist will need to have excellent interpersonal and social skills since part of the job will involve presenting the research, data and other new systems to various public health professionals like nurses and doctors. A person that can relay technical information to these professionals in layman terms would be well appreciated. Finally, any person aspiring to work in public health careers will need to have excellent writing skills since preparing comprehensive reports will be a common task.
Technically, a public health informatics specialist is pretty much an IT professional with a medical cover. There are many professions in this career area such as software designers and programmers, network specialists, database administrators, and web designers and developers. Salary ranges for these professions are normally based on market rates.