Cincinnati State launches targeted health information program
October 6, 2010
Cincinnati State Technical and Community College is joining 16 other community colleges across the Midwest in launching a novel series of courses involving health information technology.
It’s all part of the long-anticipated effort to implement an electronic health records system in the United States – one capable of letting physicians, hospitals, pharmacists and other providers communicate with each other about the same patient without needless duplication, while allowing patients to protect their privacy and retain control of their own information.
Colleges and universities in Greater Cincinnati and throughout the country offer courses – and occasionally whole degree programs – in this field. So what’s so special about the courses that are kicking off now at Cincinnati State?
They’re rooted in the health reform bill passed by Congress last year and signed into law by President Obama.
Part of the savings anticipated by that legislation relies on the implementation of electronic medical records. Studies by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Department of Education and others suggested that as many as 50,000 health information technology (HIT) professionals would be needed to make that happen. Congress included funds in the bill specifically for community colleges to train individuals who are already working in the health care and information technology industries for the new systems it envisioned.
Cincinnati State is one of 17 community colleges in the Midwest to receive funding through the bill. The Midwest consortium’s charge is to recruit and train at least 2,700 HIT professionals annually over the next three years.
Cincinnati State plans to train 80 students per year over the next two years. All students admitted into the program will receive full scholarships.
Cincinnati State will start by offering two courses, one geared toward “implementation support specialists,” the other for technical/software support staff. Both courses will be offered online. Both will let the student work at his or her own pace.
These courses, like the others in the sequence developed by the Midwest Community College Health Information Technology Consortium, are based on a curriculum developed by experts at Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, Duke University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Oregon Health and Science University.
In addition to “hard’’ skills focusing on job-specific training in such workforce roles as workflow/information management redesign specialist for a medical practice or an implementation manager for a provider with an HIT system, the training from Cincinnati State and other providers will include up to 40 hours of “soft’’ skills training such as time management, decision making and problem solving.
For more information, please contact Abel Gyan, manager of the HIT program at Cincinnati State, at 513.569.5731 or email; or Jean Wisuri, director of distance learning at Cincinnati State, at 513.569.1678 or email.
