Health Information Management (BS)

What is A Health Information Management (BS) Degree?

The Health Information field involves the collection, storage, analyzing, and protecting of health data.  This includes paper-based data as well as electronic data. The challenge of this field is documenting complex patient care delivered at numerous facilities in a way that the data can be used in an ethical way.  Some professionals in the field design the systems, some collect, maintain, and analyze the data, and some develop health policies based on findings.  As you can imagine, the data can help in studies of causes and effects of various illnesses.

The BS degree in Health Information Management will prepare you to handle management duties in facilities that provide direct care to patients—hospitals, doctors’ offices, clinics, etc.– and also to organizations like pharmaceutical manufacturers and insurance companies.  Coursework will cover, in addition to general education, subjects like medical terminology, coding and classification systems, communications and technology, healthcare finance and management, and data and information management. You’ll also have the opportunity to get hands-on experience with an internship.

The video below discusses a “typical” program, so it should help regardless of which school you are considering.