NetAssets Exclusive Series of Articles On

Health Information Technology (HIT)

Publisher’s Note:

The goal of  this continuing series of articles is to bridge the dual ARRA funding information gap between The Department of Labor and The Department of Health and Human Services efforts to support accelerated adoption of Electronic Health Records-- aka Health Information Technology.

Article #1:    Published October 9, 2009, 3339

Health Information Technology (HIT) Overview 

Article #2:   Published October 30, 2009, 3359

Obama's Health Information Technology Czar Announces New Workforce Training Initiative

Article #3:  Published November 16, 2009, 3366

How Regional Extension Centers Will Impact the Need for Workforce Development Services

Article #4: Published December 1, 2009

Regional Extension Center Service Provider Support Letter Sample

Article #5: Published January 6, 2010 Executive Summary of Health Information Technology Proposal Response to California’s 15% Discretionary Grant Submitted by three Los Angeles WIBs.

New Article:

Our editorial team thought NetAssets readers would gain a better understanding of HIT’s impact on workforce development programming and funding opportunities by providing readers with a copy of the Executive Summary of a recently submitted proposal response to the California’s 15% Discretionary grant solicitation:

Submitted December 2009

On behalf of the Verdugo WIB, and our two WIB partners, South Bay and Southeast Los Angeles County, as well as the support from Jose Marques, Director of the Los Angeles County WIB, we are pleased to submit this Healthcare Information Technology (HIT) grant application.

In collaboration with Human Resource Marketing Services (HRMS), our selected program designer and managing service provider, as well as Glendale and El Camino Colleges, the Hospital Council of Southern California, L.A. Care Community Health, the nation’s largest public agency health plan with over 10,000 physician members in L.A. County, multiple hospital employers, HIT instructional designer specialists, and a practicing primary physician and CEO of a healthcare training firm, a minimum of 100 participants will be served in this LA County Regional grant.

This project focuses on training and placing dislocated workers in several occupations associated with accelerated adoption of electronic health records (EHR). These occupations fall under the family of jobs known as “health informatics.”

Health informatics is defined as “the intersection of information science, computer science, and health care. It deals with the resources, devices, and methods required optimizing the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of information in health and biomedicine. Health informatics tools include not only computers but also information work flow, formal medical terminologies, and information and communication systems.”

Specifically, this program will focus on training and placing individuals with transferable skills into small and mid-size physician practices and hospitals to support EHR adoption. These occupations center around the clerical and administrative aspects of EHR adoption, with unlimited growth potential given the variety of higher level skills needed to support EHR implementation. These occupational, certificated programs can be completed in six months or less.

The demand for skilled HIT employees will accelerate over the next two years due to $18 billion in healthcare incentives provided by the Department of Health and Human Services, the majority of which will be available in 2011 and 2012.

According to a newly released report (September 2009) by Fenton communications and California Wellness Foundation, over 12,700 additional HIT workers will be required to support accelerated EHR adoption in 2010. According to a study performed by L.A. Care, only 10% of Los Angeles County practices surveyed have basic electronic medical systems. Employees entering this emerging field will have many career pathways.

First, their initial HIT education and work experience, as a result of this grant, will also make them employable by the hundreds of healthcare software vendors and third-party consulting firms installing EHR systems. Second, as dislocated workers, their transferable skills from other industries will give them a number of ways to leverage their prior experience within the HIT industry.

These families of occupations include IT, sales, project management, training, customer service, administrative and auditing just to name a few. In summary, the request for $671,018 in Recovery Act WIA 15% funding will not only serve the needs of dislocated workers in three L.A. County WIB areas but also provide a model that can be scalable throughout the state.

In addition, this program will provide means for all California Workforce Investment Boards to sustain job training and employment services beyond currently funded WIA ARRA funding. Finally, funding of this proposal will surely support Health Workforce Transformation as every category of healthcare provider will be motivated financially to adopt EHR systems as well as professionally to reduce costs and save lives.