Lauren Xie

Lauren Xie chose to pursue a MSc in Health Informatics at University of Victoria to combine her interests in both healthcare and technology, after completing her BSc in Biochemistry and Food Nutrition at University of British Columbia.

As part of the Health Informatics program, Lauren completed a research project at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto. She describes this journey as enormously rewarding both personally and professionally, especially under the tremendously outstanding mentors that she had the opportunities to learn from.

Through the career opportunities and flexibility of the Health Informatics program, Lauren took advantage of the many opportunities to pursue relevant work experience throughout her Master’s degree to contextualize the courses and to gain valuable insights into the health informatics field. Her experience has included an internship at the World Health Organization headquarters in Switzerland, and co-op placements at CAMH, where Lauren continues to work post-graduation. As a project analyst at CAMH now, Lauren has been involved in several large scale projects including the optimization of the existing clinical information system and the successful achievement of HIMSS Analytics Stage 7, making CAMH the first Canadian Academic Health Science Center to accomplish this designation.

The research component of the Health Informatics program at the University of Victoria was an extremely positive learning experience, both professionally and personally, and this is what, I think, sets the University of Victoria Health Informatics program apart from other similar programs in Canada.