Medical informatics
Medical informatics lasts a total of two years (120 European Credits). It consists of courses of which the majority have a duration of 4 weeks and a study load of 6 EC. The common part of the programme consists of 10 courses and 2 multidisciplinary internships. The elective tracks comprise 3 of 4 courses, after which you carry out your scientific research project.
The curriculum is summarised below:
The first semester of the Master’s programme focuses on medical data analysis (3 courses) and academic skills (in parallel with the other courses). The semester is concluded by a multidisciplinary internship. The second semester focuses on management of healthcare organizations (3 courses) and professional skills (in parallel with the other courses). This semester too is concluded by a multidisciplinary internship.
Having obtained a strong basis during the first year of the Master's in Medical informatics, the second year allows you to tailor the programme to your own personal preferences and skills. We offer two elective tracks: AI for Health and Sustainable eHealth Solutions. As an alternative to these elective tracks, it is also possible to follow 18 EC worth of courses at other master programmes. Note that for students who started the master programme in February it is not possible to follow an elective track and still finish the master in two years; instead, you will have to follow courses at other master programmes (or accept a delay of 6 months).
AI for Health builds on the medical data analysis courses in year 1. We study applications in healthcare of AI techniques, such as deep learning, ontologies, reasoning, natural language processing, image processing and prediction models. This track is a collaboration with the Artificial Intelligence (AI) master's programme of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
In this track we investigate the impact of eHealth solutions on their users (can patients and doctors use them?), the organizations (do departments benefit from them?) and climate (do they lead to lower emissions?). We use our eHealth lab to measure the effect of human factors on the usability of ehealth applications.
Choose from a wide range of elective courses such as Business Process Management, Bioinformatics, Internet Programming, Economics and Financing of Health Care Systems, The Social Web, Pandemic, Ethics and Politics of Surveillance and Privacy, Computational Biology.
Courses can be chosen at other UvA master programmmes or at master programmes of other universities.
Start your career smoothly by doing an internship of 5 EC in the first year, followed by an internship of around 42 EC in the second year.
This especially gives international students a unique opportunity to experience the Dutch Health ICT labor market. Students can choose from a range of internship positions offered by our contacts with Health ICT research institutes, businesses and other international universities such as those in the International Partnership of Health Informatics Education. The internship will be guided by an academic supervisor and must be finished with a scientific report.
You may choose to participate in an exchange semester to fulfill your master thesis work facilitated by another (international) university. Amsterdam UMC, location AMC, took the lead in establishing an international network of 10 partner universities, each offering unique opportunities for such an exchange semester.
These partner universities are:
USA: University of Minnesota, University of Utah, University of Washington
Canada: University of Victoria
Asia: University of Taiwan
Europe: University of Heidelberg/Heilbronn, University of Leipzig, University of Manchester, University of Tyrol, University of Braunschweig, University of Linkoping
For more detailed information regarding the curriculum and courses check the UvA Course Catalogue:
After successful completion of this programme, you will receive a legally and internationally accredited Master’s degree in Medical informatics and the title Master of Science (MSc).
All courses are taught in English and also the study material is in English. Some teachers only speak English, but others also speak Dutch. During internships, you can speak Dutch to some supervisors if you both wish to. However, keep in mind that the product of your internship (the research paper and presentation) will be in English.
Most weeks, the lectures are scheduled on Mondays and Fridays, taking up 12 hours a week on average. The additional time is required for class preparation, assignments and computer practicals. During the lectures on Monday, you will mostly get an introduction of the topic and an explanation of the assignment of that week. The deadlines and/or presentations of the assignments are mainly scheduled on Fridays.
Please check the list of recommended bachelor's under Entry requirements. If your bachelor (or an equivalent programme) is not in the list, please fill in our application form. To decide on your admission we need the details of your programme.
The programme provides the basis for a career at the interface of healthcare and ICT. As a graduates, you can be found working as a:
No, that is not necessary. Some courses will use the programming languages R and Python. Whether you enter the master on the basis of the premaster or the bachelor Medische informatiekunde, you will acquire sufficient programming knowledge there to be able to start this master.
The premaster has a maximum of 30 ECTS (+- 6 months of full time study), but this is usually less depending on your background. It is mostly self-study (e-learnings and literature), but you can easily get in touch with the lecturers if you wish to. Starting September 2024, there will be also a small number of tutorials at the Amsterdam UMC, location AMC.