By AMANDA BADOVINAC
Montana Tech News Service and JO DEE BLACK Tribune Business Editor

As a former nurse working at Bozeman Deaconess Hospital who also earned a bachelor’s degree in health care informatics from Montana Tech, Misti Andersen keeps a foot in both worlds — medicine and technology — as she works to bridge the gap between them.

The health care informatics program graduates are the glue that can hold an information technology project at a hospital together, because they know both the technical and the clinical vocabularies, said Gary Mannix, the head of the Health Care Informatics Department at Montana Tech in Butte.

"Graduates from our program serve as translators between the technical staff and the clinical leadership," he said.

These translators, also known as "health informaticists," often have a background in the allied health professions, such as records or claims and have pursued additional training and education in health I.T. and project management through health care informatics degree programs such as the one offered at Montana Tech.

"I.T. staff manage the computer network and maintain the software, but it’s the health care informatics professionals who can truly analyze and understand the medical data; providing clinical staff with the information they need, when they need it," said Jim Aspevig, assistant professor in the Health Care Informatics Department at Montana Tech.

"Montana Tech’s informatics degree program is really taking off; we have more requests for our interns and graduates from hospitals and clinics than we can fill," said Mannix. "Montana Tech has already produced four graduating classes and we’re at virtually 100 percent employment within the industry."

Great Falls High School graduate Kaila Fowler, 26, was in the second class of graduates of Montana Tech’s informatics program. She’s now a research analyst at Benefis Health System.

She currently collecting and analyzing emergency room data.

"We work to bring technology into health care in ways that will lower costs and improve the efficiency of care," said Fowler. "This degree would prepare you to work as a consultant or for a software company as part of a team to provide input to create a better product."

Fowler is believed to be the first informatics graduate hired by Benefis, said Tammy Trovatten, data management manager at Benefis Health System.

"We do a lot of data mining for various vice presidents and managers to give them detailed, accurate information to base their decisions on," Trovatten. "This kind of degree is ideal because they learn the health care terminology as well as having the computer background. It helps them jump in a little quicker and have a smaller learning curve in terms of data mining."

American Medical Informatics Association chief executive Don Detmer estimates a demand for 70,000 health informaticians.

According to the association, midlevel jobs, like those for clinical analysts, generally pay around $70,000 a year.

Health informaticists often begin as specialists in technology, or started their career as health record administrators, medical technologists or nurses.

"Health care is recession-resistant, but many people find it difficult to enter the health care industry," said Charie Faught, assistant professor at Montana Tech. "This has also been true for informatics because most degree programs in the field are at the graduate level.

"Montana Tech’s bachelor’s and associate’s degree programs in health care informatics give undergraduates, especially students just coming out of high school, a clear path into this field, as well as providing a way into the health care system for ‘career-changers’ who want to start applying their knowledge to health I.T."