Informatics

Informatics is a field that deals with the collection, storage and retrieval of information. In the postgraduate context, it is frequently studied in conjunction with a separate discipline – i.e. healthcare informatics or bioinformatics (the application of informatics to the molecular biology field). As such, these courses deal with the accumulation and storage of information and knowledge within those science-based fields – using computers as a primary tool. The informatics postgraduate options available in Ireland are, frequently, open to both students with a scientific background and those with an academic grounding in computing.

For instance, Trinity College Dublin offers a postgraduate diploma and an MSc (Master of Science) in Health Informatics, which are both open to people of either scientific or computing backgrounds. The postgraduate diploma is a part-time, one-year course – and students who successfully complete it can then pursue the MSc (which is pursued for an extra year, also in a part-time capacity). Programme director Dr Lucy Hederman believes it is beneficial for everyone involved with the course if the scientific and computing student communities are well represented among the attendees – as the separate factions can learn from each other when they interact.
‘One of the things that we really value in this course is putting people with an IT background and people with a clinical view of the world in the same room,’ Dr Hederman explains. ‘A lot of the value in the course comes from the interaction between those two groups of people. We see the course as being a lot about helping the two groups of people to talk to each other more effectively and efficiently.’

Dublin City University offers an MSc course in Bioinformatics – a one-year, full-time option that was on hiatus throughout 2008 but is aiming to return in 2009.  It also places great emphasis on mixing people with scientific knowledge together with computing experts. The programme has a core curriculum, but there are two distinct streams – the Life Sciences Stream (for those who come into the course with a good second-class honours degree in biotechnology, biology or a related discipline) and the Computing Stream (for those with a good second-class honours degree in computer science, computing, computer applications or a related discipline). People with significant biological or computing experience subsequent to a primary degree in a separate area are also welcome to apply.

Programme Chair Dr Martin Crane says the course attendees are usually split 50-50 between the two factions. He believes this distribution is preferable, as students from the different groups are usually paired up for the practicum (a collaborative project) so ‘they can learn from each other’.

Of course, there are several other informatics postgraduate options available throughout Ireland. NUI Galway offers a postgraduate diploma and an MSc in Health Informatics. The diploma is pursued in a part-time capacity for one year, and students who successfully complete it can then apply for the MSc course (which involves a further year of part-time study). There is also a postgraduate certificate option (one semester, in a part-time capacity) available. To take any of these NUI Galway courses, entrants must have a postgraduate degree in healthcare.

UCD offers a Healthcare Informatics postgraduate option. In a similar fashion to the courses offered in Trinity and NUI Galway, there is a diploma option (one-year, part-time) which, if completed successfully, can lead on to an MSc. These courses are open to both medical practitioners and those working in ICT areas in the health sector.
But what career options are available to students who secure a postgraduate qualification in informatics? With regard to health informatics, Dr Lucy Hederman says: ‘There isn’t really, in Ireland – yet – a job category that you’ll find in the newspaper: “health informatician”.’

However, she says there a number of ways in which the Trinity course can benefit the careers of those who attend.
Dr Hederman explains: ‘Some of them end up just changing their roles within their current jobs. So, if they’re working in a hospital or nursing environment they might become nurse informatics specialists.’
She continues: ‘Others are in clinical roles and they just have an extra dimension, an extra string to their bow, with these skills. Some people are coming from IT backgrounds and those people would, perhaps, move into the healthcare side of the organisation they’re working for. Or, they might move jobs – or just have an extra way of looking at the world.’

Dr Crane says the DCU bioinformatics postgraduate course opens up a wide range of possibilities – either in subsequent academic research, or the working world – for its students.

He said: ‘Obviously, a lot of the Masters graduates have gone on to do further academic research. For instance, PHDs in Trinity, UCD and UCC – but also in external places like the European Bioinformatics Institute in Hinxton (near Cambridge, England) and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg (in Germany).

‘Apart from the research, though, they may have gone into industrial research for companies like Almac, ICON in Dublin, SlidePath and Quintiles. But some of them have also gone on to do research work in Beaumont Hospital and the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland – there’s really a vibrant job market at the moment for bioinformatics graduates.’

And, according to Dr Hederman, there is likely to be a similarly vibrant health informatics job market in Ireland, in the near future.
She explains: ‘In countries like Australia and Canada there are lots and lots of people working as health informatics specialists. Those countries are very well developed. In Ireland, if we had a little bit more money in the health service, you could imagine there’d be more people in this area – because it can only save money and lives having better IT support for healthcare and clinical care. There are nurse informatics specialists now in the big teaching hospitals. There are people who have nursing backgrounds who have moved into informatics. I expect that it’s going to become more and more visible in terms of career opportunities.’