Program Overview

The Certificate in Medical Informatics program at the University of West Florida is available at the undergraduate or graduate level and provides an exploration of the interdisciplinary nature of Medical Informatics, with coverage of the newest technologies and concepts such as:

• Electronic health records (EHR)
• E-prescribing
• Health information exchange
• Home telehealth
• Medical mobile technology

This is a program that should be of interest to physicians, nurses, health care administrators, business managers, medical librarians, computer scientists, IT technicians, engineers and others.

Putting It Together

Our emphasis is on the real world interaction between medicine and technology and not on theory. We provide practical and up-to-date examples of issues and interesting emerging technologies with regional, national, and international impact. All courses in our certificate program were designed with input from physicians, computer scientists, and business leaders. You will develop real skills that will enable you to work effectively on interdisciplinary teams.

With an emphasis on tutorials providing hands-on training, team-based online discussions, and analysis of case studies, you will learn how to use a medical informatics education to make a difference, particularly in the area of improving communication, patient safety, and quality of care in health care and/or public health arenas.

Is this Certificate program accredited?

Both undergraduate and graduate courses taken as part of the Certificate in Medical Informatics program are part of the accreditation UWF has with SACS (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools). For the current status of UWF's SACS accreditation, see our FAQs.

Graduate courses are also part of the accreditation UWF has with CEPH (Council on Education for Public Health), for those students applying the courses to the online Master of Public Health program. For the current status of UWF's CEPH accreditation, see our Masters of Public Health program.

What makes our program different from those at other schools?

• Our program pulls in talented instructors who are working in various organizations with different levels of information technology integration. Our lead instructor has over 30 years of clinical experience as a physician and more than a decade of working in the informatics field.
• We use a very up-to-date textbook, Health Informatics: Practical Guide for Healthcare and Information Technology Professionals, Fifth Edition, to teach the HSA4192/5197 Introduction to Medical Informatics course. The textbook (also available as an e-book) is updated every 1-1.5 years, and each chapter is available free of charge to students taking the course.
• We utilize a comprehensive learning management system (LMS) known as Desire to Learn (D2L) or eLearning to administer our online courses. If you have not taken an online course before, please check out Gear Up for Online Learning, an online learning tutorial site.
• Our HSA4193/5198 Electronic Clinical Record Systems course using the textbook Electronic Health Records: Understanding and Using Computerized Medical Records, that includes EHR software for student exercises. In addition we provide access to a web-based electronic health record known as Practice Fusion that provides additional hands-on exercises.
• We have created a Health Informatics Resource Center for students. This resource site complements the textbook and gives access to resources that students can use in the courses.
• Online courses at UWF are affordable, particularly compared to other universities.
  

Where do our students come from?

Students accepted from 2007 to 2011 were from the following states in the US: AL, FL, GA, NJ, NY, OH, OK, TN, VA, WV. We have also accepted international students from Canada, Italy, Saudi Arabia and India.

Notice to Online Students

The University of West Florida's Online Campus is not available to every state at this time. Please be sure to check our web site on State Authorization to see if our courses are available to you.

We'd Like to Hear from You

For more information about this certificate, please contact medicalinformatics@uwf.edu.

Updated April 26, 2013