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V O L . X X I I N O. I V V andna Bhambri has never set foot on the University of New England's campuses in Portland and Biddeford, but she learned enough from the university's digital profile to decide she would enroll in its new online graduate program in health informatics. "I'd been looking at other programs," says Bhambri, who earned her bachelor's degree in biology at the University of Illinois and has been working for almost a decade in the managed-care field of health care. "I found UNE's program to be more affordable in terms of cost. at's a plus. I also knew they have a great reputation … ey've been ranked by U.S. News & World Report for their graduate programs in medicine and health sciences and by Forbes as a 'top college' with a good return on investment. ey're also accredited." Bhambri's own profile — she's a working pro- fessional in metropolitan Boston who's seeking to expand her information technology skills in order to advance her career goal of being more involved in shaping health care policy — is exactly the kind of student UNE hoped to attract in launching its online graduate degree program in one of the fastest-growing fields in health care. Supported by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the new health informatics program, which launched in January, is UNE's first "competency-based" degree offering. It's part of an emerging trend in higher education that recognizes there are millions of working adults who need to complete their first degree, earn a second or simply update their skills but can't afford to put their lives on hold to do so. UNE's online health informatics graduate program allows students to work at their own pace, completing course work in an online cur- riculum developed with input from key stakehold- ers in Maine's health care industry. UNE President Danielle Ripich considers it an essential step in the university's ongoing effort to meet the needs of both students seeking meaningful careers and Maine busi- nesses that are clamoring for skilled workers. "We need to continue to look for ways to provide access, to keep costs for students contained and to creatively educate the next generation," she says in a commentary about the new program published in the most recent newsletter of the Association of Schools of Allied Health Professions. "It is an excit- ing time for higher education, and we can be leaders in many ways as we use our strengths to keep our programs engaged in these challenges and opportunities." Addressing a need John Spritz, manager of Growing Portland, a collabo- ration between the city of Portland and the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce, says UNE's new program advances the collaborative's initiative of "building a center of excellence in health care infor- matics" that was launched in late 2013. "It's great what UNE is doing," he says. "e hope is that it will be the start of something big." "e Health Informatics Assessment Project," an April 2015 report prepared for Growing Portland with funding support from Maine Technology Institute, provides both local and national evidence that health informatics — defined by Loma Linda University as "a discipline at the intersection of information science, computer science and health care" — is a rapidly growing job market. e growth is driven Left to right, Megan Landry, UNE health informatics program manager; Martha Wilson, dean of the UNE College of Graduate and Professional Studies; Jay Collier, director of computational and digital programs; and Ellen Beaulieu, vice president for strategic initiatives, in the UNE online marketing office at the UNE Portland campus. P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY Health informatics UNE program tackles growing need for skilled health IT specialists B y J a m e s M c C a r t h y H E A LT H C A R E & W E L L N E S S F O C U S F E B R UA R Y 2 2 , 2 0 1 6 16

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