University of Rochester, RIT Start Joint Informatics Program

With a need of more than 50,000 new Health IT workers in the next five to seven years, according to the American Medical Informatics Association, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and the University of Rochester are combining to offer a joint master's degree in medical informatics.

"Now is the perfect time for this partnership," stated David Krusch, M.D., a practicing surgeon, director of the Division of Medical Informatics and chief medical information officer at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and co-director of the program. "In the history of modern health care there has never been a greater need for health and information technology professionals, and this program aims at providing excellent training for just those people."

Students will attend classes at either RIT's B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences or the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and will take courses at both campuses to maximize their learning and the expertise that each institution provides. Students will graduate from the institution at which they matriculated but will receive a common diploma bearing the seals of RIT and the University of Rochester.

Applications are currently being accepted for fall 2012 consideration. Recently, the Indiana Institute of Technology (Indiana Tech) in Fort Wayne has also launched a HIT program, with graduates getting an associate’s degree.