Resources & Services: Health
Fall Term of Entry only.
The University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences offers this area of interest for those interested in careers in Health Resources and Services. These are fast-growing professions with employment opportunities in hospitals; academic medical centers; healthcare systems; federal, state, and local government; corporations; nursing homes; and other information-resource centers. In addition to a focus on medical libraries and knowledge-based information in the clinical and research setting, some students may specialize in medical informatics or consumer and patient-health information sources and services.
The intent of this area of interest is to orient prospective health-information professionals to the theory, methodology, and practice of medical information management, including but not limited to medical librarianship. (Another University of Pittsburgh program—the Department of Health Information Management in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences—trains health-records administrators.) The iSchool curriculum is designed to support the concept that medical librarians and medical-information managers are team players in the integrated information environments characteristic of modern medicine. The curriculum also encourages study into the nature of health and medical information, and the traditional and the electronic means by which such information is organized, stored, and retrieved.
The School, in its Library and Information Science Program, offers the Health Resources and Services area of interest as part of its 36 credit Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree and the 54 credit Doctor of Philosophy degree. Students can tailor their interests and career objectives to the appropriate degree program while becoming well-equipped to work in a variety of healthcare sites in this exciting and dynamic field.
Courses
The typical program prepares graduates of this area of interest for many entry-level professional opportunities. The MLIS degree course of study is described below; it can be tailored for the needs of post-MLIS students seeking the Doctor of Philosophy degree.
Graduate MLIS students pursue a course of study that combines the core courses in the MLIS degree program, recommended courses in the Health Sciences area, and the opportunity to take electives from one of the reputable schools of the health professions here at the University of Pittsburgh. Students are strongly encouraged to take LIS 2921 Field Experience. The program can be completed in one calendar year of full-time study, or in four years of part-time study. Financial aid may be available for full-time study; some students work full-time in area healthcare facilities and pursue the degree part-time.
The course of study
CORE courses:
- LIS 2000 Understanding Information (must be taken in the first term)
- LIS 2005 Organizing and Retrieving Information
- LIS 2600 Introduction to Information Technologies (must be taken in the first term)
- LIS 2700 Managing and Leading Information Services
Recommended courses
- LIS 2585 Health Consumer Resources and Services
- LIS 2586 Health Sciences Resources and Services
- LIS 2587 Applications in Medical Informatics
- LIS 2334 Information Sources, Services & Technology for an Aging World
- LIS 2110 Research Methods in Library & Information Science
- LIS 2184 Intellectual Property and "Open" Movements
- LIS 2500 Reference Sources and Services
- LIS 2537 Government Information Resources and Services
- LIS 2630 Human Information Interaction
- LIS 2670 Digital Libraries
- LIS 2771 Academic Libraries
- LIS 2850 Information Professional's Role in Teaching & Learning
- LIS 2921 Field Experience (recommended if no prior work experience in the field)
12 credits of Electives
The 12 credits of elective courses may include LIS 2970 Special Topics courses in the health resources area. They may also include no more than two graduate courses from the University's Schools of the Health Sciences:
Field experience LIS 2921 is strongly encouraged, to be taken by full-time and part-time students at the end of their program. Opportunities for field experience include work in academic, corporate, hospital, and government sites, and for those pursuing consumer-health information, public and school sites; a list of sites is available annually.
To view the term in which a class is offered, please see the Projected Course Offerings.
Click here for the current plan of study.
Faculty
Ellen Detlefsen, Lead Faculty
Research Interests:
Health information management and resources, medical informatics education, information behavior, gender issues in the professions.
For more information about this area of interest, please contact our Student Recruitment Coordinator at lisinq@sis.pitt.edu or 412-624-3988.