Høst 2026

INF-3770 Health informatics - 10 stp

The course is administrated by

Institutt for informatikk

Type of course

The course can be taken as a singular master's-level course.

Course overlap

INF-3792 Medical informatics 5 ects

Course contents

The course presents computer science research and development in health technology, with focus on relevant research in projects at Department of computer science. Areas covered include: medical computations, biomedical decision-making, standards in medical informatics, ICT in healthcare, computer architecture for health and biomedical systems, system engineering in healthcare, natural language systems in healthcare, medical imaging, patient-centered health IT systems, evaluation criteria for healthcare systems, electronic health records, telemedicine, clinical decision support systems, ambient assisted living, smart homes, bioinformatics, ethics in medical informatics, modern applications and trends and future applications in medical computer science and medical informatics.

Admission requirements

Higher Education Entrance Requirement + Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or similar education. The Bachelor degree must contain a specialization in Computer Science worth the equivalent of not less than 80 ECTS credits.

Application code: 9371 - Singular courses at master's level

Objective of the course

Knowledge - The student has

thorough understanding of medical computer science and medical informatics, both as a scientific discipline and a pragmatic set of tools and techniques,
good understanding of about methods for use of medical data,
deep knowledge about heuristics and statistical decision making in medicine,
good knowledge about computer architectures for health care and biomedicine,
comprehensive understanding of standards in medical informatics and the process of software engineering for health care and biomedicine,
extensive knowledge about biomedical imaging informatics and the importance of medical imaging in medicine,
good knowledge about evaluation of biomedicine and health information resources; and
understanding of the need for ethics in biomedical and health informatics.

Skills - The student can

identify the core topics of medical computer science and medical informatics.
analyze the state of the science and current research issues related to the foundation of medical computer science and medical informatics,
characterize different domains of medical computer science and medical informatics such as decision support systems, medical imaging and laboratory systems; and
evaluate a given medical information system based on different criteria such as security, embedded decision support systems and classification systems.

General competence - The student can

apply the knowledge of medical computer science and medical informatics in management of clinical ICT systems,
evaluate possibilities and limitations of clinical ICT systems,
understand the main medical problems health care workers are facing in their daily work and how these can be supported by the use of medical computer science and medical informatics applications; and
understand basic terminologies within technology in medicine and are able to evaluate clinical ICT challenges from both basic medical and technology viewpoint.

Language of instruction

The language of instruction is English, and all of the syllabus material is in English. Examination questions will be given in English but may be answered either in English or a Scandinavian language.

Teaching methods

For students on the part-time session-based master:

The teaching and curriculum will consist of digital material made available before and between the two gatherings and serves as the foundation for discussion during in-person gatherings.

The gatherings will take place in Bodø unless otherwise specified.The gatherings will require active student participation, ie. on-site lectures, study groups, flipped teaching, collaborative problem-solving and project work.

Gatherings will be in:

Week 38
Week 46

For on-campus master students in Tromsø:

The teaching and curriculum will consist of digital material combined with physical lectures / colloquium.