Ohio Health Information Management Association - ARRA/HITECH Grant Awarded to Cuyahoga Community College

ARRA/HITECH Grant Awarded to Cuyahoga Community College

Midwest Community College HIT Consortium

April 2, 2010 - Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) in Cleveland, Ohio has been awarded the ARRA/HITECH Grant as the Lead College for the Midwest Community College HIT Consortium funded by the U.S. Dept of HHS.

Tri-C will be working with the HIMT programs at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, Columbus State Community College, Sinclair Community College, as well as with CAHIIM accredited programs from Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and Wisconsin.

Together they will be creating 6-month short term credit-based training programs in HIMT for developing a workforce that can fill roles in:

1. Practice workflow and information management redesign specialists

2. Clinician/practitioner consultants

3. Implementation support specialists

4. Implementation managers

5. Technical/software support staff

6. EHR trainers

PROJECT GOALS of the Midwest Community College HIT Consortium:

· To develop and sustain a regional network of community colleges providing HIMT educational programs

· To create standardized credit-bearing, short-term certificate training programs in HIMT for the six roles identified above

· To train current health career and information technology (IT) professionals to become HIMT professionals equipped to implement, support and integrate electronic health care information systems into diverse healthcare practice settings

· To train current health careers and IT students to become HIMT professionals equipped to implement, support and integrate electronic health care information systems into diverse healthcare practice settings

· To place trained HIMT professionals into the workforce across Region C (Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin)

OBJECTIVES of the Midwest Community College HIT Consortium:

1. Design credit bearing certificate training programs at our community colleges which can be completed within 6 months

2. Create flexibly designed training programs that can accommodate trainee’s skill gaps allowing students to enroll in just the courses needed to attain the desired level of competency

3. Provide training for all six workforce roles identified above

4. Develop training capacity of the consortium that averages 150 student participants per year for a total of 300 over the course of the 2-year grant (per college)

5. The training must begin by September 30, 2010 and the training cannot be tied into semester or quarter systems (make it flexibly scheduled)

6. Provide a plan to connect individuals completing these programs with job opportunities.

For more information, contact
Kathy Loflin, RHIA
Program Manager, HIM
Cuyahoga Community College