Graduate Certificate in Health Informatics and Digital Health (GC-HINFDH)

The increasing use of information and communication technologies in healthcare – including the rise of Digital Health, eHealth, Mobile Health and Telehealth – means that new Health Informatics knowledge and skills are needed in the health workforce around the world.*

At the same time as technology is improving and even disrupting healthcare, there is a shortage of people working in the health sector who have advanced qualifications in Health Informatics. There is national and international recognition of the need for the health workforce to build capabilities to work in increasingly technologised environments.

The Graduate Certificate in Health Informatics and Digital Health is designed for people working or planning to work in the health sector, who aspire to management and leadership roles in this rapidly expanding aspect of healthcare. The course offers the opportunity to earn a graduate qualification from the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health in this important discipline.

The Graduate Certificate in Health Informatics and Digital Health will enable you to:

• Communicate knowledgeably about core health and biomedical informatics concepts, tools and methods
• Critically evaluate approaches to information systems and information technology in contemporary healthcare in Australia and internationally
• Develop an integrated understanding of how digital data, information and knowledge are generated and managed for clinical care, biomedical research, public health and health policy and planning.

In the Graduate Certificate in Health Informatics and Digital Health students work with teaching staff who are nationally and internationally recognised health informatics researchers and highly regarded digital health industry experts. The course offers engagement with senior specialists in healthcare IT from public and private sector organisations, and insights into leadership, innovation and research.

The Graduate Certificate in Health Informatics and Digital Health is offered for part-time study and may be completed part-time over 1 or 2 years. Some subjects run in the evenings on the Parkville campus. Some subjects are available for fully online study. Some class sizes between 20 and 60 encourage workshop / seminar modes of group interaction.

Students enrolled in the Graduate Certificate in Health Informatics and Digital Health become part of an interprofessional group of graduate students from different health workforce backgrounds, biosciences, information systems and information technology, and other fields. Within this group it is possible for students to pursue more clinical or more technical interests during their studies, depending on their backgrounds and career plans.

The Graduate Certificate in Health Informatics and Digital Health can form the first half of a Graduate Diploma in Health Informatics and Digital Health (this proposal will be submitted in 2017 for 2018 commencment). It can also be a pathway to a Masters degree in Public Health, or to a Masters degree in Information Systems with a Health specialisation.

*In Australia as elsewhere ‘health informatics’ is the preferred term for the field of scientific knowledge, which has a long established history. Digital health, ehealth, mobile health and telehealth are commonly used to describe the application of this knowledge in the Internet age.