The Office of the National Health IT Coordinator last week awarded $84 million in grants to 16 universities and junior colleges to develop education and training programs to boost the number of skilled health IT workers available to help healthcare providers over the hurdles of adopting health IT.
ONC aims over time to reduce an estimated shortage of 50,000 workers in the health IT sector of the economy. That workforce is an important part of making the meaningful use of electronic health records a reality, said Dr. David Blumenthal, the national health IT coordinator, in the announcement April 2.
Among the grant awards, five community colleges received $36 million to establish a multi-institutional program within each designated region, totaling up to 70 community colleges participating. The awardees included Pitt Community College in North Carolina, and Bellevue College in Washington.
Each college will create non-degree training programs that can be completed in six months or less. The training program will focus on people who already have some background in health or information technology. Another $34 million will be available to the community colleges in the second year.
Another $10 million in grant awards will fund curriculum development centers at five universities to develop health IT educational materials that that the community colleges will use for their training programs. The centers include the University of Alabama and the Oregon Health and Science University, which will act as the National Training and Dissemination Center for the program materials, the announcement said.
Under the ONC program, nine universities will also train professionals for specialized health IT roles with $32 million in grants. Universities, including Johns Hopkins and Duke, will issue a certificate of advanced training to those who complete the more intensive coursework, likely in one year or less.
Also, Northern Virginia Community College received $6 million to develop and administer health IT competency exams to assess the ability of individuals trained in short-term and non-degree health IT programs and for members of the workforce who seek to demonstrate that they can perform certain health IT roles, the announcement said.
The newly-minted health IT professionals will help providers redesign their workflow and incorporate EHRs in their day to day patient care. "Training a cadre of new health IT professionals and breaking down barriers to the adoption of meaningful use of health IT are both critical to the national effort to use information technology to realize better patient care," Blumenthal said.
