HHS Offers Grant for Community College Consortia to Educate Health IT Professionals

The Recovery Act, signed into law February 17, 2009, includes an estimated $167 billion over ten years for programs at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS Recovery Act activities support efforts to increase access to health care, protect those in greatest need, expand educational opportunities, and modernize the Nation’s infrastructure. Of these funds, $70,000,000 will support cooperative agreements under this Community College Consortia to Educate Health Information Technology Professionals.

The HITECH Act establishes a number of incentives to advance the appropriate use of health information technology. These include the provisions of Medicare and Medicaid incentives to eligible professionals (EPs) and hospitals for the meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs), which in turn will assist in achieving the. goal of EHR utilization for all Americans by 2014. To achieve the vision of a transformed health system through the use of health information technology (HIT) can facilitate, there are three critical short-term prerequisites:
• Clinicians and hospitals must acquire and implement certified, interoperable EHRs in a way that fully integrates these tools into the care delivery process;

• Technical, legal, and financial supports are needed to enable information to flow securely to wherever it is needed to support health care and population health; and,

• A skilled workforce needs to support the adoption of EHRs, exchange of health information among health care providers and public health authorities, and the redesign of workflows within health care settings to gain the quality and efficiency benefits of EHRs, while maintaining individual privacy and security.

Critical to achieving the goal of the HIT Initiative and the success of HITECH Act funded HIT programs such as the regional centers, is the availability of a skilled workforce that can facilitate the implementation and support of an electronic health care system. Section 3016 of the Public Health Service Act (PHSA), as added by the Recovery Act, authorizes the creation of a program to assist in the establishment and/or expansion of programs to train a skilled workforce that will meet the short-term needs of the marketplace for these uniquely skilled professionals. Ensuring the adoption of EHRs, information exchange across health care providers and public health authorities, and the redesign of workflows within health care settings to gain the quality and efficiency benefits of EHRs, while maintaining privacy and security will all depend on having a qualified pool of workers. The supply of qualified health information professionals is a rate-limiting factor and maybe one of the greatest barriers to the comprehensive adoption and meaningful use of HIT.

Estimates based on the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Department of Education and independent studies indicate a shortfall of approximately 51,000 qualified health IT workers who would be required over the next five years to meet the needs of hospitals and physicians as they move to adopting an electronic health care system, facilitated by the HITECH Act. To better understand the workforce needs created by HITECH, ONC convened a panel of technical experts, including educators and industry representatives. The experts identified the competencies required by six specific HIT workforce roles, which will be critical as providers begin to implement EHRs in large numbers, and for which training can be completed in six months or less if individuals bring appropriate backgrounds to the training.

These roles are:

• Practice workflow and information management redesign specialists
• Clinician/practitioner consultants
• Implementation support specialists
• Implementation managers
• Technical/software support staff
• Trainers

These roles are more fully described in Appendix I.

The professionals trained by this workforce program will provide key support to the other HITECH Act directives such as the regional health information technology extension center program and the Health Information Technology Research Center (HITRC), and the state information exchange program.

Regional Extension Center Program. The regional health information technology extension center programs will facilitate EHR adoption and meaningful use among primary care providers through local, practice, and provider-level support, technical assistance, education, and coordination. Individuals in all six of the specific HIT workforce roles above will be prepared with the skills necessary to assist the regional extension centers in accelerating the adoption, implement and meaningful use health information technology.

Health Information Technology Research Center (HITRC). The HITRC will analyze and support national efforts to provide technical assistance and develop or recognize best practices to support and accelerate efforts to adopt, implement, and effectively utilize health IT that allows for the electronic exchange and use of information in compliance with applicable standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria. Individuals trained via the participating community colleges will have the skills needed to translate the findings of the HITRC into the daily operations of providers offices and hospitals.

State Health Information Exchange Program. Through this program, States, or their designated entity, will develop plans for coordinating health information exchange (HIE) planning and implementation at the state-level. This will create opportunities in each region for trainees to engage in the implementation of the HIE plans as technical staff working on behalf of the state, or with individual providers and hospitals, to help facilitate exchange at the micro-level.