Doctorate in Health Informatics
McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics at UTHealth Houston, formerly UTHealth Houston School of Biomedical Informatics (SBMI) is the first school in the nation to offer an advanced, practice degree in health informatics. The Doctorate in Health Informatics (DHI) provides unique curriculum that was custom-built for executive-level professionals seeking a terminal, applied degree in the field of health informatics.
The program is best suited for individuals who have at least three (3) years of informatics experience at the management or supervisory level. An applicant who lacks substantial informatics in her or his background must at least have advanced IT work experience.
The DHI is a 63-semester credit hour program for students who already hold a master’s degree in health informatics, or a related field. Students without a master’s degree in health informatics, or a related field, can enter the program with a bachelor’s degree. However, those students must complete 33 semester credit hours of didactic coursework before starting the DHI curriculum.
Important Details
- Only one DHI cohort will be admitted annually. Each cohort will begin in fall.
- Fall Deadline - March 1
This practice doctorate provides informatics leaders with the advanced education required to translate evidence from original research, evaluate current practices, and utilize critical thinking to accelerate the adoption of best informatics practices in clinical and healthcare organizations. Because the program is geared towards working professionals, instruction for the DHI is in a hybrid environment with more than 50% of the coursework taught online. Students will be required to make visits to campus each semester to meet with their classmates, instructors and advisors.
Rather than write a dissertation for the culminating project, the DHI program requires a large-scale translational project that students must complete in a healthcare organization.
Important Dates for Fall 2023
- August 24-25, 2023 - DHI Student Orientation
- October 12-13, 2023 - Glaser Society Events
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Admission Requirements
- Completed online application form and $60 application fee
- Resume or curriculum vitae
- Goal statement - (pdf)
- Proposed area of interest for the translational practice project
- A Letter of Support from the healthcare organization willing to facilitate the translational practice project. The Letter of Support must be on the healthcare organization's official letterhead. The Letter of Support should not be from the same person as a Letter of Recommendation. The Letter of Support should include background on the healthcare organization (including the indication of the size and the type of activities), the area the institution expects the student to perform the project in, and whether or not the organization will provide any type of support (monetary or technical) for the applicant’s project.
- Three letters of reference from supervisors or colleagues. At least two letters should be from supervisors. On the application, you will enter your references' information and they will be sent a form to complete and a space to upload a letter of recommendation.
- Transcripts from all institutions of higher education attended
- A baccalaureate or higher degree (master’s degree preferred)
- No minimum GPA requirement. The majority of successful applicants have a GPA of 3.0 or greater.
- International applicants must also submit the following:
- All students with international college transcripts must submit a "course by course" evaluation report by either of these independent organizations, Educational Credential Evaluators (ECE) or World Education Services (WES). Your evaluation report needs to include the official copy of the transcripts used for the evaluation. WES and ECE are the only two agencies that we will accept for admission to any of our programs. If all education was completed outside the U.S. you must have U.S. equivalency of a bachelor's degree or higher.
- TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) or IELTS (International English Language Testing System) results. The minimum acceptable score on the TOEFL is 94 and the minimum acceptable score is a 7 for the IELTS.
Please be aware that F-1 sponsorship is not available for students in the DHI program.
Interview with the McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics Admissions, Progression and Graduation (APG) Committee by invitation only
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Curriculum
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Doctorate in Health Informatics Webinar Information Sessions
There are no Doctorate in Health Informatics Webinars scheduled at this time. The next DHI session will be offered in November.