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Qualifications

Overview

A qualification recognises essential knowledge and skills and indicating a persons ability to perform tasks. Industry-wide qualifications, and those that meet national standards, allow your skill level to be compared with average levels across a sector.

The Health Informatics Quality Scheme (HIQS) is one of the moves to simplify HI professional development by recognising courses and providers that meet certain standards.

Apart from the obvious benefits to an organisation of staff members acquiring new skills, enabling employees to study for qualifications can increase commitment to the organisation and have knock-on benefits in improved productivity.

What qualification is best for me?

Below are listed the kinds of academic qualifications in Health Informatics that you might consider. The list of education providers is not exhaustive. If you would like to search for a qualification provider in your area, you can use the Health Informatics Qualifications Finder.

Non-academic courses, including technical courses in specific subject areas such as ICT and Project Management, are considered in other areas of the Learning Web. See also Competence Framework, Career Pathways and Professionalism.

Foundation degrees

These qualifications offer:

  • academic work-based learning in partnership with employers, but delivered by colleges, universities and other training providers.
  • full-time courses usually taking two years to complete; part-time courses are longer.
  • entry without necessarily acquiring traditional academic qualifications.
  • flexible teaching arrangements.
  • possible opportunity for further study.

Gaining a Foundation degree in Health Informatics will help you gain the relevant knowledge, skills and experience in the field and provide an important stepping stone for progression academically and career wise. It is a universally recognised qualification and shows that you are competent in the modules studied.

What are Foundation Degrees?

Foundation degrees are one level below an Honours degree and attract a minimum of 240 academic credits. A further 120 credits are needed to gain a full BSc (Hons) degree, so a Foundation Degree could be enhanced to a full honours degree through an additional year's study.

What Foundation degrees are on offer?

Honours degrees and postgraduate qualifications

Higher level qualifications, such as honours degrees and postgraduate qualifications, are often useful next steps in an informatics career pathway.

What honours degrees and post-graduate qualifications are on offer?

Health Informatics courses offered in Wales

Health Informatics courses offered through Welsh institutions can be seen by going to: http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sites3/page.cfm?orgId=584&pid=25809

Note to education providers: we will gladly add courses brought to our attention leading to qualifications in Health Informatics or related subjects. Please provide us with:

  • The name and main web address of your institution;
  • The name and web address of the department(s) offering HI related courses;
  • A brief summary (max. 100 words) on the HI related courses you will have available in the next academic year;
  • A contact email and/or tel. no. (include contact name if you wish) that we can put on the portal.

Graduate Training Scheme

An Informatics Management graduate training scheme is now part of the Graduate Management Training Scheme for the NHS, following a successful pilot phase. A second cohort of the pilot began in 2008: graduates looking for a structured entry to Health Informatics employment with academic support, should visit: http://www.nhsgraduates.co.uk/The-Scheme/Informatics-Management/Default.aspx  

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