The tipping point for the health IT work force and a technology-savvy health care work force occurred with the passage of the HITECH Act. The legislation's ambitious goals set in motion a need to increase the health IT, informatics and information management work force at an accelerated rate.
Experts have said that the health IT funding included the 2009 federal economic stimulus package could exacerbate the U.S.' health IT work force shortage. According to estimates, the country will need tens of thousands more health IT workers to effectively meet the goals of the HITECH Act.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and the U.S. Department of Labor recently awarded millions of dollars to educational institutions aimed at training the health IT work force needed to implement standards-based health IT systems, a nationwide health information network and provide every U.S. resident with an electronic health record by 2014.
Add to this demand, the need to train the current health care work force in the use of EHR systems and incorporate health IT training into the educational curriculum of health care professionals.
Some states are further ahead than others in preparing to meet these new health IT work force demands. Oregon has taken significant steps in building the state's health IT work force, training current health care workers and integrating IT into health care professionals' education curriculum. Oregon's collaborative effort could provide valuable lessons for other states that might be lagging behind.
Oregon's Industry-Education Partnership
The Oregon Healthcare Workforce Institute -- in partnership with the state's Department of Community Colleges and Workforce Development -- convened experts from Oregon's health IT and health care industries, as well as faculty from public higher education institutions, to discuss the need for a wide-scale work force transformation.
Since December 2009, this "Brain Trust" met over the course of four months to craft a statewide action plan to build the state's health IT work force, train current health professionals in basic EHR competencies and integrate EHRs into health care profession education programs.
Sitting around the table, educators learned about:
- Employee competencies;
- Job roles in demand;
- Training obstacles faced by rural health providers; and
- The need to teach basic computer literacy skills to health care students.
Meanwhile, industry representatives heard about the challenges educators face in:
- Balancing new curriculum with national accreditation requirements;
- Recruiting health IT faculty; and
- Obtaining resources to develop health profession faculty's competencies in EHR use.
Together they developed solutions.
Building the Health IT Work Force
The Brain Trust analyzed the supply and demand estimates for health IT workers, reviewed current education offerings, examined federal training grant opportunities, considered future work force needs and assessed the challenges to building Oregon's health IT work force and training the current health care work force.
The result was a five-year strategic action plan to position Oregon for the successful transformation of health care through health IT.
The Brain Trust identified several targets for health IT work force recruitment:
- IT workers laid off from other industries;
- Individuals whose jobs will be obsolete because of the adoption of EHRs; and
- Clinical health care professionals interested in moving into the informatics field.
The group also highlighted the need to recruit bilingual and bicultural students into the health IT work force to provide technical support and training to the multicultural work force in Oregon's health care organizations.
In addition, the group identified opportunities to partner with health care employers and the state's employment and veterans affairs departments in recruitment efforts.
Preparing the Health Care Work Force for EHR Use
Next, the Brain Trust tackled the steps to train Oregon's health care work force to meet basic competencies in using EHRs. This was not an easy task considering that some clinical providers and their support staff lack basic computer skills. Then consider the challenges faced by health providers in rural Oregon -- on-site vendor support can require more than a half-day's drive and staff training opportunities are costly.
Working together, the industry and education sectors identified ways to share resources within regional areas and to deliver inexpensive statewide training programs for skill-building and continuing education opportunities.
Priming the Pipeline
Finally, the Brain Trust focused on preparing future health professionals for EHR use.
The first step focused on developing faculty with competencies in EHR systems and informatics. Stakeholders suggested that the industry share qualified employees as faculty, as well as create on-the-job training opportunities for faculty in industry environments.
Integrating EHR-based curriculum into health profession education is fundamental to transforming the health care delivery system. Using their own experience and the work of the American Health Information Management Association, the American Medical Informatics Association and the nursing Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform, or TIGER, Initiative, the Brain Trust recommended incorporating computer literacy, information management and EHR use into standard curriculum.
The Benefits of Collaboration
The industry and education representatives recognized the advantages of teaming up to optimize education's ability to respond to industry's need for a highly skilled health IT work force. An industry-education leadership team is intrinsic to a statewide strategy to identify work force needs, define and refine competencies for curriculum development and inform a sustainability plan to continue training programs that used federal grants for start-up costs.
This collaboration is already paying off. Health care providers are becoming aware of the health IT education and training opportunities in Oregon. Several Portland-based health IT employers have recently teamed with educators for short-term employee training, while hospitals have partnered with higher education for incumbent worker training.
In this collaborative effort, Oregon is anticipating, not just responding to, the work force changes brought about by health IT transformation.