The following are some of the job profiles and career paths of Health Informatics graduates. Typically, graduates start in entry level positions and evolve towards higher level leadership positions through various career paths.

Source: H.D. Covvey, D. Zitner, R.M. Bernstein, R.M. Pointing the Way Competencies and Curricula in Health Informatics, 2001. (with minor modifications).

Entry Level Positions

1. System/Applications Expert: An expert in specific applications (e.g., a hospital information system, a departmental system, etc.), in a specific software tool or a set of such (e.g., a database package, a data warehouse package), in a specific area (e.g., IT security, database management, data warehousing), or related to a specific technology (e.g., networks, system integration).
2. Process Analyst: An analyst of complex processes in health care able to characterize, design, and re-engineer health care system processes. (example job)
3. Evaluator: An expert in the design, implementation, and interpretation of the results produced by objective techniques to determine the impacts of systems and processes.
4. Educator/Trainer: A teacher of Information Technology / Information Management (IT/IM) concepts and/or skills.
5. Programmer/Deployment Support: An individual able to use various system customization tools provided with applications: query packages, report contents and formats, screen formats, scripts, macros, and the like. This is not intended to be the type of individual qualified to develop major applications or their components using industry-standard language or program development environments.
6. Policy Planner: A definer of IT/IM-related policy at the organizational, regional, provincial/state, or national levels.

Career Path

1. IT/IM Resources/Project Manager: A manager of a team within the IS department who manages personnel, facilities, information resources, and projects related to a portion of the IS function. (example job)
2. Health IT Consultant: A methodologist, an advisor, and a process facilitator.
3. Clinical Informatician: Conceptualizes, designs, implements, and promotes information structures and systems for use by clinical professionals.

High level leadership positions

1. Information System (IS) Director: A tactical-level leader of an IS department. Manages day-to-day tactical/logistical aspects of the IS function.
2. IT Leader (CIO, VPIS) at Deployment Organization: A strategist who provides the high-level leadership to determine the IT/IM needs of the organization based on both the current situation and the organizational strategic plan as well as the potential program enablement of IT and IM capabilities; identifies required IT/IM capabilities and resources; and oversees their procurement, implementation, management, maintenance, support, evaluation, and continuous improvement.