What health informatics skills will HIM professionals need to know what him skills will health informatics specialists need?

Health informatics is a subfield within the information technology industry that leverages patient records and related data to improve healthcare delivery and outcomes. And while patient records have always played a crucial role in healthcare, the widespread adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) has necessitated a new role: the health informatics specialist.  

Keep reading to learn more about what a health informatics specialist does, the skills employers are looking for, and how you can break into the field. 

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What is a health informatics specialist?

A health informatics specialist is a professional who works with various forms of data in a healthcare setting. This data can include patient records as well as other types of health information. Health informatics specialists often (though not always) possess a background in the healthcare industry, such as a nurse, before pivoting into informatics.

How much does a health informatics specialist make?

According to PayScale.com, the median annual salary for a health informatics specialist is $67,534 per year or roughly $23.98 per hour. This salary can reach a high of $118,000, depending on the individual’s education level and experience. Profit-sharing and annual bonuses are also common benefits for these professionals, although the exact amounts vary significantly depending on the organization.

Where do health informatics specialists work?

A health informatics specialist can work for a wide variety of different types of employers within the healthcare industry. Some of the most common types of employers include:

• Provider organizations: Major health systems employ many health informatics specialists, though individual hospitals, clinics, or even private physician’s practice also hire these professionals.
• Medical device manufacturers: Manufacturers of medical devices that collect and transmit health information, like pacemakers or blood glucose monitors, rely on health informatics specialists.
• Pharmaceutical companies: Pharmaceutical companies that produce personalized medicine must maintain databases of customer information. Likewise, pharmacies are held to the same legal standards as doctors regarding HIPAA compliance and customer data protection.
• Commercial insurance companies: Health and life insurance companies rely upon health informatics specialists to maintain their customer databases, which can have a significant impact across the business—from an individual customer’s rates to the solvency of the entire company.
• Governmental roles: Governmental organizations like the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) employ many health informatics specialists at federal and state levels. Additionally, health informatics specialists can play an essential role in advising healthcare policy.

In short, a health informatics specialist can be employed by any organization that regularly receives, handles, or relies upon patient data or other health information.

What do health informatics specialists do?

Precisely what a health informatics specialist does as a part of their daily role can vary significantly depending on several factors. 

Smaller organizations, for example, may have a smaller informatics team where fewer individuals are responsible for a variety of tasks in a more generalized role. In larger organizations with more resources dedicated to the informatics department, health informatics specialists will often play more specialized functions. 

According to Jay Spitulnik, associate teaching professor and director of Northeastern’s MS in Health Informatics, health informatics specialists deal broadly with the collection, storage, management, analysis, and reporting of health data. He notes that the four most common roles for health informatics specialists are as analysts, project managers, consultants, and implementation support.

• Health information analysts collect data, analyze it to answer organizational questions or challenges, and run reports that can be used to identify trends or work with individual patients.
• Health information project managers plan and execute large-scale informatics projects, such as designing, building, and maintaining a database. 
• Health informatics consultants are typically employed as a part of a project or contract. They help their clients establish mechanisms for effective informatics management, processes, and programs.
• Implementation support specialists help to institute a new informatics program, management process, or technology. These individuals will also often be involved in training others to use and interact with the system. This role can be either internal or external (like the consulting role above). 

Health Informatics Skills

Working as a health informatics specialist requires versatility that enables you to comfortably step into various roles, depending on your employer’s needs, Spitulnik says. In addition to versatility, he recommends aspiring health informatics specialists develop their regulatory understanding, communication skills, and complex technical skills.

Regulatory Understanding

Health informatics specialists spend their days interacting with (or designing and maintaining systems that interact with) vast amounts of consumer health records. 

Therefore, it is essential that health informatics specialists understand the laws and regulations that apply to such data, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. 

After all, it is only by understanding these regulations that a professional can be confident that their systems comply. 

Communication Skills

Spitulnik says communication skills are essential for success as a health informatics specialist.  

“[HI specialists] need to be good listeners because they need to understand the needs of the end-users of the health information technology,” Spitulnik says. “They need to be able to listen well enough to ask the right questions, and then be able to communicate their findings.”

Thus, health informatics specialists should not only be skilled at communicating with other IT professionals but also with management, administration, and even care providers.

“Health informatics specialists very much play the role of interpreter,” Spitulnik says. “They are responsible for facilitating communications amongst all the various groups using the informatics function.”

Technical Skills

Finally, Spitulnik notes that health informatics specialists will ultimately rely on many of the same so-called “hard” or technical skills that others in the field of information technology also rely on. These competencies include various analytics tools, technologies, and frameworks along with programming skills such as R, Python, and SQL. 

Taking the time to learn how to perform data visualization can also be an asset, Spitulnik says, as it helps specialists communicate more effectively with different stakeholders.

Becoming a Health Informatics Specialist

If you are interested in becoming a health informatics specialist, there are several paths you might take. 

Some professionals choose to earn an undergraduate degree in information technology before pursuing a master’s degree in health informatics. Others spend years working in a healthcare capacity as a nurse or other role before deciding that they want to make a change—at which point they pursue a graduate education that empowers them to reach that goal. In either case, a master’s degree in information technology or health informatics will typically be required. 

In choosing a program to enroll in, Spitulnik recommends that students carefully consider the program’s placement rates, as well as the general educational philosophy that guides it.

“At Northeastern, close to 100 percent of our graduates are placed after graduation,” he says. “Our program is truly interdisciplinary, taking into account health science, information science, and management science to arm students with the skills and expertise they’ll need for success in their careers.” 

To learn more about the program, explore our program page or get in touch with an enrollment coach to get your questions answered.

The healthcare industry is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the data revolution. This is a field that’s always run on data, from a patient’s heart rate to a hospital’s number of available beds. But the increasing influx of nuanced and accurate data promises to drastically improve patient outcomes as well as the efficiency of healthcare organizations. In order to make good on that promise, an entire profession has formed around capturing, storing, securing, and wielding healthcare data. That profession is health informatics.

Health informatics specialists focus on the union of healthcare and IT. That can involve creating or managing tools for patient billing, scheduling, and compliance. It can also involve the use and administration of electronic health records (EHRs), or the implementation of new technology around diagnostic procedures or predictive treatment options.

In today’s healthcare organization, practically everything is connected to data and IT, giving health informatics specialists a broad but crucial role to play. That’s one of the reasons they enjoy a high salary: according to PayScale (2020), the top 10 percent of health informatics specialists earn over $103,000 per year.

For a relatively new profession, the role of the health informatics specialist is changing fast. Evolving IT options are streamlining the healthcare process, and data transfers are approaching real-time. The internet of things (IoT), personal fitness trackers, and secure cloud-based data storage are continuing to revolutionize the healthcare industry—and healthcare informatics specialists are on the front lines.

To get a look at a day in the life of a health informatics specialist, read on.

Health informatics specialists can work wherever data and healthcare operate in tandem, making for a wide range of possible work environments. As EHRs have become federally mandated, healthcare organizations of all stripes will need to employ health informatics specialists to manage them. Health informatics specialists can be utilized in clinical and non-clinical settings and may be employed by hospitals, group practices, surgical centers, consulting firms, private companies, or government agencies.

The daily responsibilities of a health informatics specialist will be largely guided by the setting in which they work. The needs of a hospital implementing a new EHR system, for example, will be different than a government agency scanning data for public health insights. But despite the broad range of duties a health informatics specialist may be charged with, some similarities do carry over across most positions.

Some typical daily responsibilities of health informatics specialists include:

• Tracking, storing, and accessing patient records
• Developing and implementing new methods of managing patient data
• Analyzing health data for insights related to policy development
• Managing and securing existing health information databases
• Collaborating between regulatory and IT departments
• Consulting with upper leadership on data-driven strategies

The growing involvement of IT-related tasks at a modern healthcare organization is increasingly the domain of health informatics specialists. As such, a health informatics specialist may be called on to perform a wide range of duties within a single organization. To meet that need requires a solid base of fundamental skills and knowledge in IT, healthcare, data management, and strategic planning.

As a career at the intersection of healthcare and IT, it’s rare for an undergraduate program to provide all the skills and knowledge necessary to perform the role of a health informatics specialist. So while it may be possible to enter this profession with a bachelor’s degree, an increasing number of employers are hiring health informatics specialists who have graduate-level education.

A master’s of healthcare administration (MHA) can offer graduates an expert-level understanding of healthcare processes, and a further specialization in healthcare informatics can supply the necessary background knowledge in IT and data management.

That said, there’s no singular path to becoming a health informatics specialist: one may have an undergraduate degree in IT and an MHA, while another may have an undergraduate degree in healthcare administration and certificate-level training in data management. Others, still, may transition from direct-care professions by pursuing a master’s degree in health informatics.

In addition to domain-specific knowledge, health informatics specialists will need strong skill sets in project management, data management, strategic planning, and communication. Especially as they move up the organizational ladder into administrative and management positions, forms of continuing education and professional certification may be useful for distinguishing themselves as experts in their field.

While it’s not a legal requirement, professional certification is a valuable option for health informatics specialists who wish to demonstrate their proficiency at the skills and knowledge necessary to perform their role at a high level. These forms of certification also connect a health informatics specialist with a broader professional network and avenues of continuing education. Health informatics specialists with professional certifications are increasingly sought after by employers and may garner a higher salary than their non-credentialed counterparts.

Professional certification for health informatics specialists is primarily offered through two entities: the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA).

HIMSS offers two certifications for health informatics specialists:

• Certified Associate in Healthcare Information and Management Systems (CAHIMS)
• Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems (CPHIMS)

The CAHIMS credential is for entry-level specialists who wish to demonstrate their professional knowledge and establish a solid foundation in their abilities. Applicants will need only a high school diploma and 45 hours of continuing education in healthcare informatics.

Once deemed eligible, candidates must pass a two-hour, 115-question multiple-choice exam that covers information recall, application, and analysis. Exam fees are $240 for HIMSS members and $315 for non-members. The credential must be renewed every three years through the completion of 45 continuing education credits, 25 of which must be obtained through HIMSS.

The CPHIMS credential is for experienced health informatics specialists who wish to advance their careers and demonstrate a commitment to continuing professional development. Applicants will need either a bachelor’s degree and five years of information and management experience (three of which occurred in a healthcare setting), or a graduate degree and three years of information management experience (two of which occurred in a healthcare setting).

Once deemed eligible, candidates must pass a two-hour, 115-question multiple-choice exam that covers information recall, application, and analysis. Exam fees are $405 for HIMSS members and $525 for non-members. The credential must be renewed every three years through the completion of 45 continuing education credits, 25 of which must be obtained through HIMSS.

AHIMA offers two certifications for health informatics specialists:

• Registered Health Information Technician (RHIT)
• Registered Health Information Administrator (RHIA)

The RHIT credential is for IT-focused health informatics specialists. Applicants will need a bachelor’s degree from a health information management (HIM) program at an accredited university.

Once deemed eligible, candidates must pass a 3.5-hour exam that covers six domains: data content, structure, and information governance; access, disclosure, privacy, and security; data analytics and use; revenue cycle management; compliance; and leadership. Exam fees are $229 for AHIMA members and $299 for non-members. Those who earn the RHIT credential must recertify every two years through the completion of 20 continuing education units.

The RHIA credential is for administrative-focused health informatics specialists. Applicants will need either to hold an RHIA credential or to have graduated from a health information management (HIM) program accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education (CAHIIM).

Once deemed eligible, candidates must pass a four-hour exam that covers five domains: information governance; compliance with uses and disclosures of PHI; data analytics and informatics; revenue management; and management and leadership. Exam fees are $229 for AHIMA members and $299 for non-members. Those who earn the RHIA credential must recertify every two years through the completion of 30 continuing education units.