On Monday, the American Health Information Management Association announced the launch of its HIM Jobs for America initiative, which aims to support employment and training opportunities for health IT professionals, Health Data Management reports (Goedert, Health Data Management, 10/3).
AHIMA announced the initiative during its annual convention in Salt Lake City.
Program Details
As part of the initiative, AHIMA will partner with HHS and North Shore Medical Labs to run a demonstration program targeting small physician practices in Alabama, Mississippi and North Carolina (Monegain, Healthcare IT News, 10/3).
AHIMA will provide no-cost health IT training to health care providers in underserved areas, and North Shore Medical Labs will donate electronic health record systems through its Nortec Software subsidiary.
Legislative Platform
As part of the initiative, AHIMA is encouraging lawmakers to include a health IT training component as part of President Obama's American Jobs Act (Conn, Modern Healthcare, 10/3).
AHIMA's legislative platform calls for:
- Expanding and funding college curricula to educate future health IT professionals;
- Offering tax credits to encourage employers to provide job training or retraining for health IT workers (Mitchell, CMIO, 10/3); and
- Providing scholarships to students who pursue health IT degrees (Healthcare IT News, 10/3).