UC Master of Health Informatics students share experiences in program

The University of Cincinnati's Master of Health Informatics (MHI) program became the first and only program of its kind in Ohio to receive accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education (CAHIIM). Under the leadership of Victoria Wangia-Anderson, PhD, who serves as the Program Director, the program achieved substantial compliance - an accomplishment very few programs have been able to achieve.

The accreditation marks another milestone for the program, which is also recognized as an Approved Education Partner by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and is nationally ranked as one of the best online master’s programs for health informatics.

Offered fully online to learners worldwide, UC’s MHI program equips students with a unique combination of skills in health IT, business, project management and data analytics, ultimately enabling them to manage complex data systems and leverage data to improve patient care delivery and overall population health. 

“[The recent CAHIIM accreditation] proves that UC meets the criteria for quality education and is committed to higher standards, and that there’s excellence in their teaching methods in preparing us for the real world with our careers,” said Allison Vorst, a second-year MHI student who’s preparing to graduate from the program this spring. 

Vorst, who holds 10 years of experience as a dental hygienist and works as a provider on the west side of Cincinnati, also teaches aspiring dental hygienists as an adjunct clinical instructor at UC’s Blue Ash College. While the program’s online aspect certainly appealed to her busy schedule, Vorst said the work her mother and sister are doing to leverage data to make a difference in their respective medical careers inspired her to pursue a degree in health informatics. 

“I got to listen to what they’re doing in their fields with health informatics, and I thought, 'Why are we not doing this in dentistry?' Research links poor oral health to overall systemic health, and there's a true power behind the data we’re collecting [as dental professionals] that could really help improve patients’ health and help doctors create better decision plans for their patients,” Vorst said. “So really, I got involved in this [program] because I saw it as a great opportunity to enact change in my dental profession.”

To support a multi-disciplinary approach, the MHI program doesn’t require students to have prior healthcare or IT experience. So, while students like Vorst come from a strong provider background, other students, like Dave Spatholt, come armed with diverse expertise in finance, business, data analysis and project management. 

Spatholt, who also has a master’s degree in urban planning and previously managed federal community development grants for programs that supported low-income and homeless populations in Hamilton County, said he was drawn to UC’s MHI program because of his desire to better understand the health system and how to manage clinical data.

When he applied, he was working at UC’s Early Intervention Program, which provides screening and intervention services for HIV, Hepatitis C, substance use and mental health disorders for at-risk populations. When COVID-19 hit in early 2020, he transitioned from managing the program’s grants and providing on-site training to conducting clinical research and supporting the operation of COVID-19 testing sites throughout Hamilton County.

He even built an internal dashboard in Microsoft Power BI to track the testing sites’ operational metrics. That’s when Spatholt realized he was drawn to informatics and found UC’s MHI program, which he says has only helped fuel his career in clinical research.

“Sometimes clinical research can be seen as both separate from the health system but also tightly integrated with it, and so a lot of the issues we run into are how to store and manage clinical services and research data. These are all things I learned through the program—the standards for data storage and standards for the way we code things so we understand what they mean.”