Medical and technological advancements are causing the government to standardize and regulate healthcare records. Because of this, new educational opportunities and career paths are available. By earning a degree in healthcare informatics, you'll be prepared to work in different areas of the healthcare field.

Resource: Top 20 Best Online Master's in Healthcare Informatics Degree Programs

Clinical Informatics Specialist

If you select this area of healthcare informatics, you'll be working in the administrative department of a medical facility. As a clinical specialist, your higher-ups will expect you to create new processes to improve operational procedures and provide documentation. You'll also oversee the transfer of paper documents to the facility's digital network. Before you can begin a career as a clinical informatics professional, you will need some nursing experience, so plan to earn your bachelor's degree in nursing. Also, be sure to get your registered nursing certification. To improve the system, you'll first need to understand the technology that nurses use on a daily basis.

Informatics Nurse

As an informatics nurse, you'll be responsible for combining the clinical side of medicine with the technical one. When you begin working in informatics, you'll assess a healthcare facility to determine the best clinical IT applications to improve efficiencies. Once you've developed a plan, it will be up to you to create a training program to update your staff. In this type of job, you'll oversee communications between your facility's technical department, vendors and employees. For an informatics nursing career, plan to earn your bachelor's degree in nursing as well as certification from the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

Consultant

When you decide to enter the consulting area of healthcare informatics, you'll be working with a facility to ensure that it's meeting federal obligations while keeping overhead low. For this line of work, you'll need to be comfortable with the technical side of the industry because you'll be installing software and monitoring systems. To increase your chances of success, consider earning your master's degree. Also, be prepared for a career that requires travel, and while this element has its fun aspects, it can be a challenging part of the job. Good leadership skills and decision-making abilities will help you thrive in consulting.

Clinical Informatics Manager

If you enjoy being in charge and prefer administrative work, consider a career as a clinical informatics manager. By becoming a supervisor, you'll be overseeing a healthcare facility's daily operations. This job will require you to train staff members and manage them. You'll most likely oversee budgets, and you must make sure that your facility's systems comply with federal and state regulatory standards. For a facility to hire you as a manager, you must first work in a lower level informatics position to gain experience. In this field, the salary is comfortable since it ranges from $80,000 to more than $100,000 a year.

Health Informatics Specialist

Those who become health informatics specialists will have similar responsibilities to individuals who work as informatics nurses, but this area focuses more on the technical aspects. Practice your communication skills because you may wind up training staff members. You may also be in charge of developing educational documents for a healthcare facility's procedures and systems. If you become a health informatics specialist, then plan to troubleshoot operational problems to come up with solutions. Educational requirements for this line of work vary according to the type of position that you prefer. However, most health informatics specialists need a bachelor's degree or a master's degree in the realm of computer science.

With a degree in healthcare informatics, you'll have a career that focuses on improving the system. You'll have the chance to work in different areas of healthcare while enjoying the challenges of making a facility operate more effectively.

Additional Reading:

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Top 10 Best Online Healthcare Administration Degree Programs