Introduction

Hey Gillian,

It will be helpful to think of which path you want to focus on: the study of the science of information and its societal implications (informatics) or the science of computation (computer sciences).

In both cases, you can definitely self-learn the necessary skills to build regular business applications, but if you wanted to do fancier things (e.g. data mining, machine learning), you definitely need to take additional computer science and statistics courses.

For informatics, you would probably be interested in a masters program. You have various options to choose from.

The online course that I took when I started was called Learn To Program: The Fundamentals . It's a solid course and a very good introduction for beginners. The programming language they teach (Python) is one of the most commonly used in the world and is probably used a lot in the informatics field. Later on you will want to look for online courses in databases.

My advice is to start off by having fun. Build a couple of small applications - don't take it too seriously. Use Google for everything else - there's an overwhelming amount of free tutorials and courses out there.

At the moment, I'm focused on the software engineering route (building and maintaining infrastructure), but I find my interests overlap quite often with the informatics field. If you're interested in chatting further, shoot an email to jlee14c[at]hotmail.com.

johnlee wrote: Hey everyone!

I'm John, a pharmacist in BC (graduated from UBC 2015), and am now a software developer at a health tech startup called Shift Health.

I made the career transition after gradually building up interest in the health tech space. I started learning programming while in pharmacy school after taking a health informatics elective. I also built a small desktop app for one of my previous pharmacies to help with workflow.

Now I'll be going back to school to pursue a Bachelor in Computer Science degree from UBC, and I'll be self-learning all about SMART on FIHR, mobile app development, and security & privacy. I'll poke around my network at the same time to see what kinds of problems pharmacies need to solve, and hopefully I'll come out of the other end with some neat prototypes that can help unlock valuable differentiating services for independent/small chain pharmacies.

If you want to chat about some ideas, let me know!

Thanks,
- JL

Hi John, very interested to read about your career transition. I am a recent graduate in Ontario who is looking to eventually transition into more of a health informatics field and am hoping to teach myself programming in the near future. I am wondering if there was a specific course or program you used when learning programming, or if you have any recommendations being further along as to what skills may be most useful or desired when looking to get into the world of informatics. Thanks in advance,

Gillian

Hello, my name is Gillian Haigh and I am a recent U of T pharmacy graduate as of this past spring currently working in the community. I started to become interested in the field of informatics during my final year of placements after experiencing first hand the informational and technological challenges experienced in the pharmacy while trying to bring about care as effectively and efficiently as possible, and am looking forward to being part of the solution. I am hoping to get involved in some projects moving forward and am excited to see what initiatives are already underway!

My name is Donna Goring. I am a pharmacist that works in Community Health Services for Island Health Authority in BC.
Basically my practice includes going into client's homes and performing medication reviews, helping clients organize their medication and simplify their regimens. I do this in collaboration with physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses and occupational and physiotherapists.
One of the challenges we have is elderly clients who need insulin, but can no longer self administer. Home care nursing can do daily visits for a short period of time (for example if a client had a stroke and may still recover some abilities), but cannot support daily visits long-term. Often these people have to go to residential care just for their insulin management. Hopefully the technology wizards will be able to develop something to assist these clients!

Thank you,
Donna

Hello Everyone:
My name is Hui Wang. I'm a community pharmacist working in Ontario for over ten years. With the fast developing computer technology, our practice as well as patient's needs for medication management have been changed so much. I'm excited to join the group and hope to share and learn some perspectives in the field which would shape the future of our practice.

Thanks,
Hui

Hi Everyone,

We've had some new members join recently, after our community was featured in Canadian Healthcare Network this week.
Welcome! Looking forward to getting to know you better and hearing your voice in the forum discussions

I encourage you to reply to this thread with a few words about yourself, and don't forget to post a picture. This will continue to enhance the "community" feel of our group.

Kind regards,
Seema