The master's degree programme in Medical Informatics is jointly offered by TU Wien and the Medical University of Vienna.
In cooperation with
Medical Informatics focuses on the integration of information technologies in healthcare in order to drive innovation, improve treatment outcomes, and support the digital transformation of healthcare. This interdisciplinary field combines knowledge from computer science, medicine, biology, public health, and related disciplines to develop and implement innovative solutions.
The master's degree programme in Medical Informatics offers a sound, scientifically and methodologically high-quality education in these areas, with a focus on sustainable knowledge. This enables graduates to pursue careers in the following fields, as well as further qualifications, particularly within the framework of a subsequent relevant doctoral programme, and makes them internationally competitive:
- Designing and implementing innovative solutions in the field of digital health and medical informatics
- Applying state-of-the-art techniques in data analysis, modelling, and machine learning
- Solving complex interdisciplinary IT problems in healthcare
- Conducting research in academic and industrial settings with a focus on health technologies and medical informatics
- Leading IT projects in healthcare and implementing digital transformation strategies in clinical and public healthcare
- Consulting and training stakeholders in the field of digital health solutions and innovations
Graduates also acquire competencies in the areas of diversity in medicine and gender medicine and are qualified to take into account the relationship between the core dimensions of diversity—socioeconomic status, ethnic and national origin, age, physical and mental abilities, sexual orientation, sex and gender identity, religion, and worldview—and health status, with reference to the tasks of medical informatics.
Professional fields for graduates include:
- Pharmaceuticals and personalised medicine: bioinformatics, drug discovery
- Neuroscience: neuroinformatics, analysis of brain imaging data
- Public health: epidemiological data analysis, public health informatics
- Mobile and wearable health technologies: assistive devices, health monitoring
- Artificial intelligence in healthcare: predictive analytics, diagnostics, treatment optimisation
- Biomedical research: genomics, proteomics, imaging technologies
- Health data management: handling, integration, and safeguarding of large-scale health datasets
In view of professional requirements, the master's degree programme in Medical Informatics provides qualifications in the following categories.
Subject-specific competencies
Students may choose from the following specialisations within the master's degree programme in Medical Informatics: Bioinformatics, Neuroinformatics, Public Health Informatics, Mobile Health, Wearable, Assistive Technologies, or Artificial Intelligence and Analytics in Clinical Decision Making. Each specialisation provides students with specific competencies:
- Bioinformatics: Techniques for managing and analysing biological data using computer-based tools in the fields of genomics, proteomics, and personalised medicine.
- Neuroinformatics: Techniques for simulating neural networks and for managing and analysing complex neuroscientific data to understand brain functions and disorders.
- Public Health Informatics: Techniques for managing and analysing public health data, including epidemiological studies and population health management, and for supporting decision-making in public health.
- Mobile Health, Wearable, and Assistive Technologies: Design and development of innovative digital health tools for patient care and health monitoring.
- Artificial Intelligence and Analytics in Clinical Decision Making: This field combines AI-based analytics, medical imaging, and clinical informatics in order to make effective use of data from imaging procedures and clinical systems. The aim is to support evidence-based decisions and improve diagnostics, workflows, and patient outcomes.
The Focuses of the Medical Informatics Master’s Programme
The training focuses on practical, research-relevant, medical or clinical problems. An essential element is the imparting of communicative skills to deal with these problems together with scientists of other fields. The environment of the Medical University of Vienna is especially well-suited for that.
In addition to a broad training in solving informatic problems in the medical area graduates will also require deeper skills in one of the following specialisations (“core subject combination”):
- Bioinformatics
- Neuroinformatics
- Public Health Informatics
- Clinical Informatics
- or Informatics for Assistive Technologies
The academic training ensures that graduates are primed for current and future tasks in the field of bio- and neuroscience, medicine and health care and can acquire at any time new methods in medical informatics.
The Structure of the Programme
The programe consists of
- Mandatory and elective courses at a total of 78 ECTS points
- Basics, 18 ECTS
- Core subject combination, 24 ECTS
- Application subjects, 12 ECTS
- Interdisciplinary informatics. 24 ECTS
- Freely elected coursesm 6 ECTS
- Diploma seminars, 5 ECTS
- Master thesis, 30 ECTS
- Written thesis, 27 ECTS
- Thesis defense, 3 ECTS
A core subject combination serves for specialization in one of the above-mentioned areas and consists of well adjusted sets of modules from the two blocks Application Subjects (providing knowledge and skills pn medical and life science topics) and Interdisciplinary Informatics (containing the respective informatic backgrounds), complemented by a mandatory module devoted to deepening the respective area.
Project studies
Students also have the opportunity to get some course credits (for up to 18 ECTS) by practical work in a larger project instead of taking the respective courses, depending on the availability of appropriate projects and approval by the curriculum director. In particular this provides students with part-time jobs to acquire credits through their professional work, provided such work provides skills that would otherwise be covered in courses.