HHS to invest $80 million to grow HIT workforce
By Mary Mosquera
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Dr. David Blumenthal, the national coordinator for health IT, announced plans today to make available $80 million in federal grants to help boost the number of skilled health IT workers available to help healthcare offices over the hurdles of going electronic.
Blumenthal anticipates that the program will train 10,000 skilled health IT professionals per year to begin to turn around an estimated shortage of 50,000 workers in that sector of the healthcare economy, he said in a teleconference with reporters.
“Ensuring the adoption of electronic health records, information exchange among health care providers and public health authorities, and redesign of workflows within health care settings all depend on having a qualified pool of workers,” Blumenthal said.
The programs will direct $70 million to 70 community colleges for training programs and $10 million to develop educational materials and a curriculum for those programs.
Blumenthal expects to award grants “in the next several months” and to announce other workforce training programs over the next few weeks.
The objective is to establish non-degree, intensive training programs that take six months or less to graduate skilled health IT workers. The training programs will focus on individuals who already have some background in health or information technology, Blumenthal said.
“The training will convey the skills needed to help health professionals implement, get going, maintain and use effectively electronic health records,” he said. “Also, they will help them to redesign workflow, improve quality and improve efficiency in the day to day use of electronic health records.”
Under the workforce program, the participating 70 colleges will be grouped in five consortia covering the nation by region, said Dr. Charles Friedman, deputy national health IT coordinator. He hopes to have the programs stood up quickly.
“The need for trained personnel is quite profound. We hope to produce trained graduates of these programs as soon as possible,” he said.
The workforce program will coordinate with regional health IT extension centers in the area, Friedman said. The roles or jobs for which the educational programs will be designed will relate to the work of the extension centers.
“The exact mechanism of coordination is to be worked out. But certainly we do expect that many of the professionals who complete this training will be employed in these regional extension centers,” Friedman said.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT also expects to award the first set of grants in December for the regional health IT extension centers. There will be 70 regional health IT extension centers in total. Physicians will receive technical assistance from the centers for implementing and adopting electronic health records for meaningful use.
More details on the grant program will be available here when the formal funding announcement is issued.
