Margarete Zalon, Program Director
Faculty: Professors – Yaodong Bi, Mary Jane S. Hanson, RN, CRNP, CNS, Nabil Tamimi, Daniel West; Associate Professors – Steven J. Szydlowski;
Program Objectives
The Master of Science in Health Informatics at The University of Scranton will provide graduates with a firm understanding of an emerging discipline located at the intersection of information science, computer science, and healthcare. The focus will be on the resources, devices, and methods required to optimize the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of information in health and biomedicine. The program will explore a number of health informatics tools that include not only computers but also clinical guidelines, formal medical terminologies, and information and communication systems. Graduates will understand how health informatics applies to the areas of nursing, clinical care, dentistry, pharmacy, public health, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and biomedical research.
Program of Study
The program of study consists of eleven, three-credit hour modules, for a total of 33 graduate credit hours. Each module is offered online in an eight-week format. Courses are offered sequentially, and learning is cumulative.
Admission Requirements
An applicant for the program must possess a baccalaureate degree from a regionally accredited college or university and have an undergraduate GPA of at least 3.00 on a grading scale of 4.00. Applicants falling below this level may submit other evidence of their ability to complete graduate work such as grades in other graduate level courses, scores on the Graduate Record Examination, and/or a record of progressively higher work responsibilities. A completed application, together with official transcripts of undergraduate and graduate work taken elsewhere, letters of recommendation, any required test scores, and other supporting documents, should be received at least one month before the term in which the student wishes to begin graduate study. In addition, all applicants must successfully pass two placement examinations, one in basic healthcare knowledge and the other in basic information technology knowledge. Failure to pass one or both placement examinations will require the student to enroll in and pass the appropriate remediation module before progressing beyond the Introduction to Health Informatics course. These one hour modules will be offered at no-cost to the student and may be taken concurrently with the Introduction to Health Informatics course. International students, whose native language is not English, must demonstrate their proficiency in English by meeting the criteria established by the College of Graduate and Continuing Education.
Scheduling
*May be required of students who fail the healthcare and/or technology placement exams