Top 6 Health Informatics Interview Questions

In this blog post, I am going to go over some of the FAQs I have encountered when searching for a job in the health informatics field. Through interviewing and researching countless job posts, I have noticed similarities in the questions and skills organizations are looking for, when hiring applicants in the health informatics and analytics space. Here are 6 common interview questions you might encounter in your health informatics interview:

1. What would you do if a doctor came into your office and immediately wanted you to build a report ASAP?
   
   
2. How would prioritize demands from different healthcare departments for reports?
   
   
   
   With these two above questions, interviewers might be testing your prioritization skills and how you organize multiple projects. In addition, interviewers might be looking to see if you mention keeping your manager in the loop, with the project requests you might receive from external stakeholders and departments.
   
   
   
   
   
3. What is the difference between prevalence and incidence? Give examples of how specificity and sensitivity are used in healthcare?
   
   
4. What experience do you have with data visualization tools, how do you communicate data insights to an audience with a non-technical background? What large-scale clinical datasets have you worked with? What challenges did you take from this?
   
   
   These two above questions test your clinical and technical skills. I would suggest going over key concepts in biostatistics and epidemiology, prior to the interview, as most job postings are looking for a degree in health informatics, epidemiology or a related degree.
   
   Also, interviewers might want to know the level of technical aptitude you have in programs such as SQL, R or data visualization tools such as Power BI and Tableau and how you have applied these tools to clinical datasets. If you are applying to an analytical-heavy job, they might want to know what skills you have developed to deal with messy, unstructured data, as this is quite common with large-scale clinical datasets.
   
   
   
   
   

1. Give examples of how you work in a team environment? How do you deal with conflict among colleagues?
   
   
2. Why do you want to work for this organization? What got you interested in the healthcare field?
   
   
   These two above questions test your ability to work in a multi-disciplinary team as this is quite common when working in the healthcare field. In my job, I work with midwives, nurses, developers and analysts. Also, interviewers will want to understand the motivation behind you wanting to work in healthcare and specifically the organization you are applying to.
   
   To summarize, these below points represent the key requirements for most health informatics jobs I have observed:
   
   

• Understanding of clinical terminology
• Experience dealing with large clinical datasets to drive decision making
• Experience with writing SQL queries
• Experience with data visualization tools (i.e. Power BI, Tableau, Qlik)
• Experience working with a multi-disciplinary team
• Relevant degree in a health discipline
  
  
  If you are looking to prepare further for the a role in health informatics check out the eBook here which is a comprehensive guide on the process.
  
  
  
  
  

The day-to-day role of a health informatic professional will most likely include several meetings with clinicians when looking to understand their reporting requests and therefore, you might need to be able to understand the clinical terms that are used and have an understanding of the clinical terminology in your organization. Next, you will probably have access to large-scale clinical databases where information is housed from the EHR, labs and other sources of medical data. You might have to use SQL to extract insights from these databases (e.g. the number of patients that were readmitted over a 30 day period).

Once you have extracted the data insights which match the reporting needs of the clinicians, you have to communicate your results often in the form of graphs and charts. Oftentimes, health informatic professionals work on a large team of clinicians and developers and you have to speak both the clinical and technical language of your health organization. Looking to become a healthcare data analyst? Check out the course here to learn more!