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Certificate in Health Informatics

The Certificate in Health Informatics aims to train students in the world of health informatics, giving you the skills to develop and use information technology to create a better healthcare system.Ìý

The Certificate in Health Informatics is a specialization part of the MDI program (Master of Digital Innovation). The MDI program has the followingÌýgeneral framework.

Health informaticians work in an interdisciplinary environment incorporating computer science, medicine, health, nursing and business knowledge to improve healthcare and health outcomes.

Program overview

Full-time internship or thesis

Fall 1 DGIN 5100
+
DGIN 5400
+
HINF 6101
Winter 1 DGIN 5201
+
HINF 6110
+
HINF 6230
Summer 1 DGIN 7000: Internship (internship students)
or
DGIN 9000: Master’s Thesis (thesis students)Ìý
Fall 2 ÌýDGIN 5001: Capstone (internship students)
orÌý
DGIN 5002: Research Methods (thesis students)
+
2 electives

Part-time internship or thesis

*Eligibility for this part-time program is limited to domestic students due to current immigration and visa regulations.

The following presents suggested pathways. Flexible pathways may be discussed with your academic advisor or certificate coordinator.

Internship

The work-integrated pathway includes a full-time internship dedicated to digital innovation tasks. Students enrolled part-time may complete equivalent hours over two terms.

Fall 1 DGIN 5100
+
HINF 6101
Winter 1 DGIN 5201
Summer 1 DGIN 7000 (internship part 1)
Fall 2 DGIN 5400
+
1 elective
Winter 2 HINF 6110
Summer 2 DGIN 7000 (internship part 2)
Fall 3 DGIN 5001
+
1 elective
Winter 3 HINF 6230

Thesis

The thesis pathway includes several research activities to be determined with the supervisor. A student enrolls in the DGIN9000 (Thesis) course from the moment their supervisor and research proposal are accepted by the program director. Then, they will be enrolled in DGIN9000 every term until their thesis has been defended, revised, and approved.

It is recommended to discuss the choice of electives with the thesis supervisor.

Fall 1 DGIN 5100
+
HINF 6101
Winter 1 DGIN 5201
Summer 1 DGIN 9000 (Thesis)
Fall 2 DGIN 5400
+
DGIN 5002 (Research methods)
+
DGIN 9000 (Thesis)
Winter 2 HINF 6110
+
DGIN 9000 (Thesis)
Summer 2 DGIN 9000 (Thesis)
Fall 3 DGIN 9000 (Thesis)
+
2 electives
Winter 3 DGIN 9000 (Thesis)
+
HINF 6230

Certificate requirements

All MDI students follow the general MDI requirements.

In addition, students must complete the following certificate requirements:


The mandatory (core) certificate courses:

HINF 6101 Health Information Flow and Use

This course tracks the flow and use of health information in relation to population and individual health needs, including its generation, collection, movement, storage and use in various settings. The course includes a discussion of health and health information, and of the measurement of health and health services processes.

HINF 6110 Health Information Systems and Issues

A course about health infostructures and their strengths and weaknesses. Students will learn about how such structures operate, the issues they generate, their impact on the health of populations and their impact on the flow and use of information. Particular attention will be paid to ethical and practical health informatics issues.

HINF 6230 Knowledge Management for Health Informatics

The goal of this course is to characterize healthcare knowledge and to examine the technical issues related to the development and deployment of knowledge management solutions for managing healthcare knowledge to support three main activities: Clinical decision support, practitioner and patient education, and health administration. At the conclusion of the course, students will be able to (a) identify the presence (or lack) of healthcare knowledge within a healthcare enterprise; (b) capture it using various knowledge representation formalisms; and (c) utilize it via new or existing knowledge management infrastructures to impact the delivery the healthcare.

Ìý

Your choice ofÌýtwoÌýelectivesÌýfrom the following list:

HINF 6020 Research Methods

This course explores the logic and principles of research design, measurement, and data collection. The course offers a range of methodological issues and methods, including experimental and quasi-experimental designs, survey research and sampling, measurement, and qualitative methods.

HINF 6102 Health Information Standards and Use

This seminar course discusses technical and philosophical issues related to the capture and use of information. Issues include nomenclature; the reliability and accuracy of coding schema; interoperability; and, ISO/CEN, HL7 and Infoway standards development. Student projects will track the flow and use of information for hospital, community and public health purposes.

HINF 6210 Databases and Data Mining for Health Informatics

Health organizations collect massive amount of data to support clinical decision-making, outcome measurement, policy setting, administration and research. This course provides a conceptual understanding of various data mining algorithms and introduces healthcare-related data mining strategies to facilitate the mining of real-life healthcare data to provide data-driven healthcare decision-support services.

DGIN 5401 Operationalized Machine Learning in Healthcare

This course provides a broad overview of machine learning and machine learning operations in healthcare contexts. We begin by studying how healthcare data is unique, and how machine learning methods have been applied to clinical and medical tasks. We focus on various graphical, deep learning, time-series, and transfer learning models and unique aspects of their application in healthcare. We cover concepts of fairness, privacy, trust, explainability, and other human factors. We discuss implementation techniques, including ‘MLOps’ for healthcare, and opportunities for real-world deployment. Much of the course will be seminar-based, including guest lectures and descriptions of research papers. Students will choose and complete a commensurate research project. The course expects and requires a familiarity with programming and core concepts in data mining or data science. It is strongly recommended that Master of Digital Innovation students take this in their final semester.