The Health Information Technology (HITECH) portion of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 (ARRA) provided funds for institutions of higher education to train health care and information technology workers. The eHealth Workforce Development Workgroup report projects that approximately 9,000 additional highly skilled health information technology (HIT) workers with a broad range of skills sets will be required to support California over the next five years.
Mesa College is one of 14 colleges in California, Hawaii, Arizona and Nevada participating in the HITECH grant.
The grant is designed to train people quickly in the kind of computerized health information systems that are being installed by hospitals and medical offices across the western states. The electronic systems will replace inefficient paper records and allow health providers to quickly review and update a patient's medical history. Patients who have had to move, change doctors or required emergency medical attention know the importance of getting medical records transferred quickly and how difficult that is to accomplish in a paper-based system.
Mobile Adoption Support Positions
These members of the workforce will support implementation at specific locations for a period of time, and when their work is done, will move on to new locations. Workers in these roles might be employed by Local Extension Centers, providers, vendors, or state/city public health agencies, and would work together in teams. Preparation for this set of roles will typically require six months of intense training for individuals with appropriate backgrounds.
Practice Workflow and Information Management Redesign Specialist
Workers in this role assist in reorganizing the work of a provider to take full advantage of the features of health information technology (IT) in pursuit of meaningful use of health IT to improve health and care.
Workers in this role will:
- Conduct user requirements analysis to facilitate workflow design
- Integrate information technology functions into workflow
- Document health information exchange needs
- Design processes and information flows that accommodate quality improvement and reporting
- Work with provider personnel to implement revised workflow
- Evaluate process workflows to validate or improve practice's systems
Implementation Support Specialists - NEW COURSE INFO
Workers in this role provide on-site user support for the period of time before and during implementation of health IT systems in clinical and public health settings. The previous background of workers in this role includes information technology or information management.
Workers in this role will:
- Execute implementation project plans by installing hardware (as needed) and configuring software to meet practice needs
- Incorporate usability principles into design and implementation
- Test the software against performance specifications and interact with the vendors as needed to rectify problems that occur during the deployment process
Permanent Staff of Health Care Delivery and Public Health
These roles are needed for ongoing support of health IT that has been deployed in office practices, hospitals, health centers, long-term care facilities, health information exchange organizations and state and local public health facilities. Preparation for this set of roles will typically require six months of intense training for individuals with appropriate backgrounds
Technical/Software Support Staff
Workers in this role maintain systems in clinical and public health settings including patching and upgrading of software. The previous background of workers in this role includes information technology or information management.
Workers in this role will:
- Interact with end users to diagnose IT problems and implement solutions
- Document IT problems and evaluate the effectiveness of problem resolution
- Support systems security and standards
Participate
Mesa College is the only college in the San Diego region participating in this grant and space is limited.
Interested students should enroll now: Application
For more information on:
- Consortium Colleges and workforce roles
- San Diego Mesa College Program questions: HITWorkforceMesa@gmail.com
- Federal Health Information Technology
