Resources & Services: Health

Students may enter this specialization in the Fall, Spring, and Summer Terms.

The University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences offers this specialization 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 specialization 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 specialization as part of its 36 credit Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree; 24 credit Certificate of Advanced Study post-master's degree program; 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 specialization for the many entry-level professional opportunities. The MLIS degree course of study is described below; it can be tailored for the needs of graduate post-MLIS students seeking the Certificate of Advanced Study or the Doctor of Philosophy degree.

Graduate MLIS students pursue a course of study that combines the core courses in the MLIS degree program, required 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:

Required courses

15 credits of Electives

The 15 credits of elective courses may include LIS 2970 Special Topics courses in the health resources area. They may also include no more than two courses from:

Field experience 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.

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 specialization, please contact our Student Recruitment Coordinator at lisinq@sis.pitt.edu or 412-648-3108 .