I’m often asked how I ended up in health informatics and what advice I’d give to clinicians considering this path. As AI becomes more central to healthcare, these questions are becoming more frequent.

Here’s my perspective on clinical informatics as a career—what it takes, where it leads, and whether it might be right for you.

What Clinical Informatics Is

Clinical informatics sits at the intersection of healthcare, information technology, and data science. It’s about using information and technology to improve healthcare delivery.

This includes:

• Designing and implementing clinical information systems
• Analysing healthcare data to improve care quality
• Developing clinical decision support tools
• Leading digital health transformation
• Overseeing AI and analytics applications in healthcare

Clinical informaticists work in hospitals, health services, government agencies, vendors, consulting firms, and academic institutions. The field is growing as healthcare becomes more digital.

The Clinical Foundation

Most successful clinical informaticists start with clinical backgrounds. Medicine, nursing, pharmacy, allied health—the clinical discipline matters less than having genuine clinical experience.

Why does clinical background matter?

Credibility. Clinicians trust informaticists who’ve done clinical work. “I was a nurse for ten years before moving into informatics” opens doors that pure IT backgrounds don’t.

Understanding workflows. Clinical workflows are complex and often undocumented. Having lived them means understanding them in ways outsiders can’t.

Speaking the language. Clinical communication is full of implicit knowledge. Informaticists with clinical backgrounds communicate effectively with clinical colleagues.

Keeping patients central. It’s easy for technology projects to lose sight of patient care. Clinical training creates an orientation that keeps patients in focus.

Can you enter health informatics without clinical background? Yes, but it’s harder. The most successful non-clinical informaticists usually specialise in technical roles (data science, engineering) rather than clinical interface roles.

Building Informatics Skills

Clinical training doesn’t include informatics. You’ll need to develop additional skills:

Formal education. Master’s degrees in health informatics are available at several Australian universities. These provide theoretical foundations and credentials that matter for senior roles. Part-time study while working is common.

Certifications. CHIA (Certified Health Informatician Australasia) is the main Australian certification. It demonstrates competence to employers.

On-the-job learning. Many informaticists learn through roles—starting in clinical positions, gradually taking on informatics responsibilities, building expertise through experience.

Technical skills. You don’t need to be a programmer, but understanding databases, data analysis, and how systems work helps. Basic SQL, data visualisation tools, and spreadsheet modelling are useful.

Project management. Health informatics involves projects. Project management training and experience matters.

Career Progression

A typical career path:

Clinical role with informatics interest. Starting as a clinician, you take on informatics-adjacent responsibilities—becoming a super user, joining system implementation committees, providing input on workflows.

Dedicated informatics role. You move into a role focused on informatics—clinical informaticist, clinical analyst, application specialist. You might still have some clinical responsibilities, or might be entirely informatics-focused.

Senior informatics role. With experience, you progress to senior positions—lead informaticist, informatics manager, director of clinical informatics. You manage teams, lead major projects, influence strategy.

Executive role. Some informaticists progress to executive positions—Chief Clinical Information Officer (CCIO), Chief Nursing Information Officer (CNIO), Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO). These are C-suite or near-C-suite roles.

Not everyone follows this progression. Some prefer specialist technical roles. Some move between healthcare organisations and vendors. Some combine informatics with ongoing clinical practice.

What Makes Someone Succeed

Observing colleagues over the years, successful informaticists share certain traits:

Comfort with ambiguity. Health informatics is messy. Requirements are unclear. Stakeholders disagree. Technology doesn’t work as expected. Thriving in ambiguity is essential.

Translation ability. You need to explain technical concepts to clinicians and clinical needs to IT staff. Being a translator between worlds is core to the role.

Political awareness. Healthcare organisations are political. Informatics initiatives create winners and losers. Understanding and navigating organisational politics matters.

Persistence. Change is slow. Projects hit obstacles. Initiatives get deprioritised. Persistence through setbacks separates those who succeed from those who don’t.

Continuous learning. Technology evolves constantly. Clinical practice changes. Regulations update. If you don’t enjoy learning, informatics will frustrate you.

Patient focus. It’s easy to get absorbed in technology and lose sight of why it matters. The best informaticists stay connected to patient care, even when they’re no longer providing it directly.

The AI Opportunity

AI is expanding health informatics roles. Organisations need people who understand both clinical practice and AI capabilities. Traditional informatics skills (system design, change management, clinical governance) apply directly to AI.

If you’re building a health informatics career now, developing AI literacy positions you well. This doesn’t mean becoming a data scientist—it means understanding what AI can and can’t do, how to evaluate AI products, how to govern AI implementations.

The clinical informaticists who become AI leaders will be in high demand.

Challenges and Considerations

Before pursuing this path, consider:

Leaving clinical practice. Most informaticists reduce or stop clinical practice. If you love direct patient care, this is a significant sacrifice. Some maintain part-time clinical roles, but it becomes harder at senior levels.

Frustration and pace. Healthcare technology change is slow. Political obstacles, budget constraints, and competing priorities mean many initiatives fail or stall. This frustrates people who want fast results.

Work-life balance. Informatics roles can be demanding, especially during major implementations. Project-based work creates intensity cycles that some find difficult.

Income. Informatics salaries are generally good (often higher than equivalent clinical roles), but not as high as private clinical practice for some specialties.

Getting Started

If you’re interested in health informatics:

Seek opportunities in your current role. Volunteer for system implementations. Join informatics committees. Become a super user. Build experience.

Network with informaticists. Join HISA (Health Informatics Society of Australia). Attend conferences. Connect with informaticists in your organisation.

Consider formal education. Research master’s programs. Talk to graduates about their experiences. Consider whether full-time or part-time study suits your situation.

Explore roles. Look at job postings to understand what’s required. Talk to people in informatics roles about their work.

Be patient. Career transitions take time. Building informatics expertise while maintaining clinical credibility is a multi-year journey.

Health informatics is a rewarding career path for clinicians who want to improve healthcare at scale. AI makes it more relevant than ever. If the intersection of healthcare, technology, and data excites you, it might be the right path.

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Dr. Rebecca Liu is a health informatics specialist and former Chief Clinical Information Officer. She advises healthcare organisations on clinical AI strategy and implementation.