MSt (flexible) in Healthcare Data: Informatics, Innovation and Commercialization

Educational Aims

The programme will develop individuals with the necessary knowledge and skills to be able to understand and critically evaluate electronic healthcare data in a manner compatible with innovative commercialisation opportunities
The course will:

• Provide professionally relevant teaching and learning of the knowledge and skills that underpin, and are at the forefront, of successful understanding and utilisation of electronic healthcare data.
• Develop, create and upskill healthcare data experts with the necessary expertise, and originality of application, to pursue and expand their roles in the context of the rapidly evolving environment of electronic healthcare data
• Promote a comprehensive understanding of the practical and ethical considerations relevant to healthcare data, informatics, innovation and commercialization.
• Ensure a systematic understanding of the skills and knowledge required to facilitate the development of critical thinking, and appropriate analytical and problem-solving skills relevant to the utilisation of healthcare data.
• Provide work relevant learning and practical expertise in the context of a critical awareness of current problems, best-practice, challenges and potential solutions in the use of healthcare data.
• Instil a critically reflective approach to the development of innovative and commercially viable application of healthcare data.
• Create a professional network of like-minded individuals as leaders in the field of healthcare data commercialization.
• For students completing the PgDip or Masters programme provide students with the skills and knowledge to execute the entire process from initial curiosity driven database queries, through to data analysis and visualization, completing with data entrepreneurship, commercialization, and digital marketing. And for Masters students to do this in a work-relevant and practical manner via their research dissertation.

Learning Outcomes

The programme provides the skills and knowledge needed to convert digital health data within electronic patient records, trial registries, and audit networks into effective research, service improvement tools which may have commercial applicability.
In particular the over-arching learning outcomes are:

Knowledge and understanding

• To enhance the students’ systematic knowledge and critical understanding of the diverse range of healthcare data produced, the way this is stored and handled and the problems this presents.
• To develop students’ ability to evaluate and to critically compare healthcare data sets in order to make value-based judgements on the most appropriate analytical and visualisation approaches to use.
• To enable students to describe and critique the functional and organisational structure of healthcare datasets.
• To provide a comprehensive understanding of the skills necessary to enable students’ to critically review and interpret healthcare data in the context of developing decision support tools, systemic change, and potentially novel commercial leads.
• To create an enquiring perspective to enable critical and evaluative discussion that extends student understanding of key ethical issues in the acquisition and use of healthcare data.
• To develop students’ ability to evaluate best practices in the use of healthcare data and apply appropriate methods to their own work.
• To enable students to understand and apply the academic and professional theories and applications of change management, innovation, commercialisation, and entrepreneurship to the utilisation of healthcare data.
• To enhance the students’ systematic knowledge and critical understanding of the importance, relevance, breadth and applicability of healthcare data in the modern world.
• To develop students’ ability to critically evaluate subject matter.
• To enable students to describe and critique key analytical, visualisation, and commercialisation techniques and approaches relevant to healthcare data.

Skills and other attributes

• To develop a data query and follow this with appropriate application of analytical and visualisation tools. To define, develop and implement the process of change management in a healthcare context.
• To demonstrate systematic knowledge of the skills and methodologies necessary to: understand healthcare data in a repository; to perform appropriate analytical interpretation of the data; to apply appropriate visualisation tools and techniques; to identify innovative commercial potential in a critically evaluative manner, under their own initiative.
• To present an appropriate understanding of, and technical competence in, the analytical and visualisation methods required for understanding healthcare data and for engaging downstream user groups and stakeholders.
• To design, prepare, implement and evaluate a business case and digital marketing strategy for the innovative commercialisation of healthcare data

Teaching

The MSt (flexible) in Healthcare Data: Informatics, Innovation and Commercialization builds on the teaching and learning taken during the PG Certificate and PG Diploma (flexible) course years. During the course students undertake the development of a research dissertation, worth 60 credits.

This is a part-time course designed to fit with the demands of full-time employment. The course is delivered using blended learning methods through a combination of face-to-face sessions requiring attendance in Cambridge and synchronous online teaching sessions, self-directed learning and supported through a virtual learning environment [VLE].

60 credits is roughly equivalent to 600 hours of study. This is an indicative amount and it is recognised that individuals may engage in greater or lesser amounts of study.

Each student will be assigned a named supervisor and will work with them to identify preferred ways of working (face to face or remote supervision) and patterns of supervision over the year. The supervisor will be agreed by the course director following discussion with, and based upon the research interest of, the student

Specific small-group taught sessions will be provided on research and academic writing skills relevant to both the completion of the dissertation and the literature review. These will be primarily delivered early in the academic year.

Around 5 hours of supervision will be provided that is directly relevant to the dissertation or literature review. This will be complemented by small-group sessions exploring the research and academic writing skills needed to complete a dissertation or literature review.

Academic requirement

The MSt (flexible) in Healthcare Data: Informatics, Innovation and Commercialization is only open to those who have successfully completed and passed the Postgraduate Diploma (flexible) Healthcare Data: Informatics, Innovation and Commercialization at Cambridge.

Applicants for this course are expected to have achieved a UK 2.1 honours degree or equivalent.

It is preferred that an applicant's first degree be in a subject relevant, or related to, life sciences, medical sciences, computational or data science.

Language requirement

All applicants are required to demonstrate competency in English at a high level before commencing the programme; students whose first language is not English must be able to satisfy the requirements below.

• IELTS Academic: Overall score of 7.0 (a minimum of 7.0 in Listening, Writing and Speaking; 6.5 in Reading)
• TOEFL Internet: Overall score of 100 (a minimum of 25 in each individual component)
• CAE: Grade A or B (with at least 193 in each individual element), plus a Language Centre assessment
• CPE: Grade A, B, or C (with at least 200 in each individual element)

Please be aware that students require the use of a laptop for the duration of the course.

Application

Read the MSt Application Guide to find out more about the application process and what you need to do and consider as a potential applicant.

What do I need to provide? 

In addition to the basic questions, applicants will be asked to provide:

• Copies of relevant academic qualification certificates and transcripts
• Relevant professional qualifications or memberships with documentary evidence A professional CV
• Language proficiency (if required)
• Contact details of two referees who will be contacted on your behalf Evidence of funding (if applicable)
   

Fees

The fees for 2023-24 entry will be £5,667 per annum for Home students and £9,917 per annum for Overseas students. The combined graduate fee includes College membership.

Other costs

Students will be expected to cover the application fee (£50 online) and any costs of travel, accommodation and subsistence during residential sessions in Cambridge.

Please be aware that students require the use of a laptop for the duration of the course.