Cleveland State Community College will be offering a new Medical Informatics degree program this fall. "This new Associate of Applied Science degree will enable graduates to secure employment in a wide variety of computer technician positions in healthcare settings," officials said.
Students learn effective written and oral communication of technical and non-technical information, protective security tools and applications, federal, state and local laws affecting medical office technologies and electronic reimbursement and billing practices. Graduates can be employed as medical / hospital help desk technicians, desktop support technicians and implementation support specialists.
Students will have two different tracks to choose from with the Medical Informatics degree—technician or developer concentration. The technician concentration is to prepare students to be just that—a Medical Informatics Technician who works in healthcare settings doing computer technician work such as help desk, network troubleshooting, etc. The developer involves more computer programming.
“We are very excited to now offer the Medical Informatics AAS degree,” stated Ann Cunningham, associate professor, Computer and Information Systems. “It offers students the opportunity to build basic computer networking or programming skills while also learning terminology and procedures that are specific to the healthcare work environment. Students with this degree will be qualified for entry level IT jobs in a variety of healthcare settings.”
Students are able to choose their general education courses in a time format that meet their needs—traditional day or evening courses, hybrid or online. Then, the medical informatics courses are delivered in an online format to help provide work / life balance. For the core courses, students will be in an online class environment with “like-minded” people, who are focused, self-disciplined and want to earn their degree. Other advantages include forming strong connections with other working students; students will know their schedules up front for the entire program; and working toward a degree as a group has been proven to dramatically improve graduation rates.
If you are interested in starting this program in the fall, the first step is to apply for admission to the college. You can do that by visiting the website at www.clevelandstatecc.edu or for more specific questions about Medical Informatics, contact Cunningham at 423-472-7141, ext. 326.