Today I began a six month certificate plan in the HITECH Workforce Program. The program is a pivotal piece to the recently passed HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) Act with specific aims:
- Nationwide adoption of Electronic Health Records
- Information exchange across health care providers and public health authorities
- Redesign of workflows within health care settings to gain quality and efficient benefits of EHR
- EHR Transition while maintaining privacy and security of medical information.
The program was designed to cross-train individuals in health care and Information Technology (IT). Those with a medical background (most of us), will have a primary focus on IT issues (networks, databases, and programming) and those with an IT background will focus on health care issues. As an incentive to increase enrollment, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of the National Coordinator is offering 100% tuition reimbursement for those who finish the program within 6 months until funding runs out.
The training curriculum was developed by industry leaders and educators at Duke University, University of Alabama, Oregon Health Sciences University, Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University. This uniform curriculum is based online with all reading material, power point presentations, quizzes, etc. made available through Blackboard at approved regional sites.
There is a real need for health care professionals like ourselves to dive into this program. According to the Labor Bureau of Labor statistics and the Department of Education, the federal mandate for nation-wide implementation of Electronic Health Records by 2015 will require 50,000 qualified health information technology workers.
In projecting these numbers, several workforce roles have already been identified. Among the applicable ones to health care workers (others exist for IT) include:
- Clinician/Practitioner Consultant
- Practice workflow and information Management Redesign Specialist
- Implementation Support Specialist
- Implementation Manager
Employers for these roles can include but are not limited to health care facilities, vendors, state/city public health agencies, and regional extension centers. The members of these roles will be considered of mobile adoption support and will help implement at the aforementioned sites and upon completion will move on to new locations.
If you enjoy traveling, a highly variable work environment and different daily challenges, this may be just for you. As the course progresses, I will run down the responsibilities for each applicable role, suggested background, projected pay, and typical education. In addition I hope to give you my impressions of the course.
For more information on the program, click here.
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