Programme Description

As one of the largest consumers of public funds, health plays a major role in economic policy throughout the world. The main objectives of western governments in the health sector today are twofold - efficiency and effectiveness - with improved quality of care at the same, or reduced cost. Healthcare is an information intensive industry generating enormous volumes of information every day in hospitals, GP surgeries, clinics and laboratories. Yet most of this data continues to be processed manually in spite of decades of experience in the successful application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in other information intensive industries such as banking and insurance.

There are many reasons for the slow uptake of ICT in healthcare including lack of investment in the technology and a lack of people with the relevant skills. The application of ICT in healthcare, now generally known as Health Informatics, is a complex and intellectually demanding interdisciplinary field in which Medicine, Computer Science, Management Science, Statistics and Engineering are all represented. Health Informatics is no longer viewed as a peripheral issue but rather as a central means of improving the overall efficiency and effectivess of healthcare delivery. This in turn is encouraging Governments to increase investment in ICT in healthcare.

However, the lack of people with appropriate education and training in Health Informatics continues to be a major problem. The aim of the Postgraduate Diploma/MSc Programme in Health Informatics offered jointly by the Faculties of Health Sciences and of Engineering and Systems Sciences aims to address this problem by equipping students with the knowledge required to ensure that the health sector gets the best out of ICT.

Aims of the course:

• to give students from a health science background a broad appreciation of the fundamentals of Information Technology
• to give students from a computing background a broad appreciation of the fundamentals of Health sciences
• to give students a comprehensive understanding of the role of Information Technology in the health sector
• to provide students with a good understanding of the principles underlying Health Informatics
• to study the application of Health Informatics with emphasis on both practice and theory
• to provide students with an appreciation of the medico-legal and ethical issues
• to provide the necessary supporting research methodology and demonstrate its application to practical problems

This course has been co-funded under the National Development Plan (Graduate Skills Conversion Programme) for EU fee paying students. In 2009/2010 the fee for EU fee paying students will be EUR2,000