What is Medical Informatics?

The Medical Informatics degree programme offers students an interdisciplinary and application-oriented study course. Medical Informatics deals with all aspects of the use of modern information technology in the field of health care. One aim of Medical Informatics is to assist physicians in the treatment and care of his patients and to analyze, simulate, develop and support diagnostic and therapeutic devices with the methods of informatics.

The future-oriented courses reflect the fact that almost all of today's hospitals and laboratories processes are supported electronically and IT solutions in health care have become a fixture and will be increasingly important. Also the pharmaceutical and medical-technology industry or the administrative area of health care, such as health insurance, health offices, etc. can not manage without a medical computer scientists anymore. Not surprisingly, the Society for Informatics (GI) has appointed health care as one of three core subjects for the Informatics Year 2006. The graduates of this degree programme are applicable in many ways (see job description) and the job opportunities are considered to be promising.

Structure and Content

The interdisciplinary study course of Medical Informatics at the University of Applied Sciences Brandenburg started in the winter semester 2007/08. The Medical Informatics study course is a collaboration of the University of Applied Sciences Brandenburg and the Brandenburg Municipal Clinical Center Corporation.

One important educational goal is to provide students with basic knowledge in the areas of informatics, which will be valid for many years and represents a good basis to receive further advanced training in specific directions which the labor market calls for. In addition, the students gain appropriate skills with concrete tools, programmes and systems in the field of Medical Informatics and acquire further advanced skills to be directly applied at a prospective employer. In addition to a deliberately broad-based training which would greatly facilitate a career entry, we offer specializations in the areas of computerized medicine and Medical Informatics.

Course Structure

The standard period of study for the Medical Informatics Bachelor degree programme is 6 semesters (3 years).

During the course of study some courses will be held jointly with the study courses of the Informatics Bachelor degrees and the Applied Informatics programme. Modules such as foundations of informatics, programming, mathematics, databases, etc., are identical for all programmes.

The first year of study consists of technical foundation components of informatics, the basis of medicine and medical informatics, programming, technical informatics, mathematics and the English language. Important modules in the areas of operating systems and networks and practical informatics are taught in the second year of study. Furthermore, after the completion of the first year of study, acquired knowledge is specialized through courses in the field of computer-assisted medicine and through five modules of Medical Informatics. The latter include a mandatory choice of important and current issues such as

• Imaging systems,
• Signal processing,
• Bioinformatics,
• Artificial Intelligence and
• Computer visualization.

During the 4th semester the students will complete a complex internship, by attending the nearby hospital (4 semster hours per week).

The curriculum is completed by general education classes in the field of business management and quality management. With this combination of subjects the students acquire a solid and broad basic knowledge, which is particularly valuable for small and medium-sized enterprises, and which builds the basis for good training, cooperation and teamwork skilles in their future careers.

Projects are worked on for a semester in small working groups of 3 to 9 students under the constant supervision of a lecturer. Projects relate to a predetermined or self-selected topic related to Medical Informatics, which will essentially corresponds to the current level of training. The support provided by the professor, who advises the students, amounts to approximately 4 hours per week.

Project work aims to

• deepen the immediate practical relevance of studies,
• encourage the teamwork of students,
• give the possibility of further specific advancements,
• obtain the creative combination of knowledge from individual sub-regions.

In a supervised practical project during the first half of the 6th semester students are expected to work in the activity fields of Medical Informatics, in order to gain insights into the role and functioning of operations and understanding of the interaction between various operational areas. Thus, the practical relevance of studies will be advanced and the students are given the opportunity to recognize the importance of their studies for professional practice. Parallel to the practical project the university holds accompanying seminars in order to deepen the operational experience.
The second half of the 6th semester concludes the course study with a written Bachelor thesis paper and with the attending of the Bachelor seminar. With a successful completion of the Bachelor exam, the students earn the Bachelor of Science Degree with detailed identification of selected major modules and courses in the Diploma Supplement.