Cincinnati State to share in health information training grant
April 9, 2010
Cincinnati State is one of 17 community colleges in the Midwest, and one of 70 in the United States, chosen to participate in a federal program designed to train workers for jobs supporting a fast-growing health information network.
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (or HITECH) Act, passed by Congress in 2009 as part of the economic stimulus package, contains a variety of measures designed to encourage the rapid adoption of electronic health information technologies by physicians, hospitals and other providers.
One of the top goals: giving every U.S. citizen an electronic medical record by 2014.
Proponents assert that such a system will reduce medical errors, help eliminate duplicative or unnecessary medical testing, improve the coordination of care and promote efficiency throughout the nation’s health care system. In 2009 the Congressional Budget Office estimated that incentives and other provisions in the HITECH legislation would convince 90 percent of the nation’s physicians and 70 percent of hospitals to use comprehensive electronic health records within 10 years.
On April 5 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as part of its broad effort to implement the HITECH Act, announced that Cuyahoga Community College will receive a $7.5 million technology training grant. It will be used by community colleges in Ohio and nine other states to train current and future healthcare workers for jobs implementing the new health information technology.
Cincinnati State is one of 16 Midwestern community colleges chosen to work with Cuyahoga Community College to implement the program. Most participating schools will receive between $290,000 and $1.5 million the first year.
That federal grant anticipates training 5,400 people over a two-year period, starting in autumn of 2010. Students will be expected to complete their training sessions in six months or less.
Coursework will be offered at collaborating colleges, as well as online and through employer partnerships and other outreach programs.
Details concerning precisely how the HITECH grant program will work at Cincinnati State are now being developed, said Sherri Mallett, the Health Information Management program chair at the College.
“We are proud to be involved in this effort to capitalize on the use of information technologies to improve the quality and continuity of patient care in the Cincinnati area,’’ Mallett said.
The Midwestern community college consortium and four others across the country will receive about $36 million in 2010-11 for the training program, with the promise of similar funding for a second year if performance targets are met.
In addition to Cuyahoga and Cincinnati State, other community colleges in the Midwestern consortium include Columbus (Ohio) State Community College; Delta College; Des Moines Area Community College; Johnson County Community College; Kirkwood Community College; Lansing Community College; Macomb Community College; Madison Area Technical College; Metropolitan Community College; Milwaukee Area Technical College; Moraine Valley Community College; Normandale Community College; Sinclair Community College; St. Louis Community College; and Wayne County Community College.
