Health Care Informatics MS
With the MS Health Care Informatics program, you will develop skills in high-demand areas in health care, such as systems analysis and design, database design and management, clinical decision support and computer programming.
Program Type
Program Format
Health Care Informatics…
“focuses on the use of information technologies, data analytics and automation of medical data to assist with the problem solving and decision making that improves health care.”
– American Medical Informatics Association
Are you interested in information systems, database management, computing, network design, automation and documentation in a health care setting? The UWM College of Health Sciences MS Health Care Informatics program may be a great fit for you.
Your work in health care informatics could take you to a wide variety of settings, including health care systems, hospitals, physician offices, medical group practices, nursing homes or government agencies.

- Our program is designed for both full-time or part-time students with courses offered face to face and online.
- Our program gives you a broad perspective of the field, as well as theoretical and applied knowledge pertaining to various subareas within health care informatics.
- You will be exposed to cutting-edge research in areas that are indispensable to improving health care, such as big data, predictive analytics, natural language processing, medical knowledge representation and information retrieval.
Employment Outlook
Our graduates are highly sought after. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs for medical records and health information technicians will grow 8% between 2019-2029, faster than other occupations. The demand for health services is expected to increase as the population ages. An aging population will need more medical tests, treatments and procedures. Additional records, coupled with widespread use of electronic health records by all types of health care providers, could lead to an increased need for technicians to organize and manage the associated information in all areas of the health care industry.
Successful Alumni
The College of Health Sciences has over 10,000 alumni. These alumni have taken their health sciences degrees and have excelled in their careers.
Visit our Alumni page and be inspired by where a health sciences degree can take you.
You must meet UWM Graduate School requirements and submit GRE scores taken within the last five years (the GRE requirement is waived if you already hold another master’s degree, PhD or the equivalent).
No specific undergraduate major is necessary for admission. Typical applicants have a background in a health-related or information/computer-related field, but applicants from other academic or professional backgrounds are welcome to apply.
We accept applications for both fall and spring semesters. Our admissions are on a rolling basis and there are no deadlines.
For questions regarding admissions, please contact ms-hci@uwm.edu.
The MS Health Care Informatics degree is awarded upon completion of 32 credits (non-thesis option) or 35 credits (thesis option) of prescribed graduate study; 23 credits of core courses, 6 credits of electives, plus either three credits of project or six credits of thesis.
Core required courses (23 credits)
COURSE | CREDITS |
---|---|
HCA 700: Introduction to Health Care Informatics | 3 |
HCA 722: Legal, Ethical and Social Issues in Health Care Informatics | 3 |
HCA 723: Health Care Systems Applications—Administrative & Clinical | 3 |
HCA 740: Introduction to Biomedical Database Applications | 3 |
HCA 741: Essential Programming for Health Informatics | 3 |
HCA 742: Computational Intelligence in Health Informatics | 3 |
HCA 760: Biomedical and Healthcare Terminology and Ontology | 3 |
HCA 541: Healthcare Information Systems Analysis & Design | 3 |
Electives (6 credits)
Electives other than those listed below are to be approved by the program director.
COURSE | CREDITS |
---|---|
HCA 721: Health Information Technology Procurement | 3 |
HCA 743: Predictive Analytics in Healthcare | 3 |
HCA 744: Text Retrieval and Its Applications in Biomedicine | 3 |
HCA 745: Health Big Data Processing Platforms | 3 |
HCA 776: Biomedical Natural Language Processing | 3 |
HCA 789: Biomedical Information Extraction | 3 |
HCA 909: Guided Teaching Experience in Health Sciences | 3 |
HS 917: Seminar in Health Outcomes Assessment | 3 |
Project (3 credits) or Thesis (6 credits)
COURSE | CREDITS |
---|---|
HCA 891: Health Care Informatics Professional Project OR | 3 |
HCA 890: Health Care Informatics Research and Thesis | 1-6 |
- Associate Professor, Health Care Informatics Graduate Program Director, Health Informatics & Administration
- jakeluo@uwm.edu
- 414-229-7333
- Northwest Quadrant B 6469
- Associate Professor, Health Informatics & Administration
- nambisap@uwm.edu
- 414-251-5217
- Northwest Quadrant B 6410
- Associate Professor, Chair, Health Informatics & Administration
- wu@uwm.edu
- 414-229-4778
- Northwest Quadrant B 6438