AUPHA and CAHME entered into preliminary discussions with HIMSS concerning our shared interest in improving and enhancing the teaching of health information management and technology across the spectrum of health administration education. Many programs struggle with health IT content and finding useful and appropriate classroom mechanisms to deliver the expected skills and competencies. Additionally, we lack the trained faculty to provide meaningful educational experiences for our students.
To that end, AUPHA and CAHME have proposed to develop a program through which we would develop modules, courses, exercises and other instructional materials to be made available without charge to AUPHA undergraduate and graduate member programs. These materials will be designed to fill in the gaps that exist in health administration education in the areas of Healthcare IT, informatics, and the impact of healthcare IT on the management of healthcare delivery system. The materials will be in various formats and levels of competencies that could form a new course or be integrated into existing courses.
Many programs utilize practitioners to teach the health IT content, or full-time faculty from a variety of academic disciplines. The project is designed to provide tools and strategies to assist faculty to be more effective in the delivery of health IT education. A critical piece of this program will be a train-the-trainer program utilizing webinars, face-to-face and hybrid mechanisms to raise faculty confidence and competence in teaching healthcare IT.
At this point in the process AUPHA and CAHME are seeking to understand the range and depth of interest in the development and dissemination of health IT teaching materials.
- Would your program be interested in becoming a beneficiary of the materials developed through this AUPHA/CAHME/HIMSS project?
- Would your program benefit from the “train-the-trainer” strategy for dissemination of the educational material, thus increasing faculty access to educational materials and improving teaching skills, competence, and confidence?
- Could your program become a contributor to the project by participating in the creating and dissemination of health information educational materials?
There will be an opportunity to learn more about the proposed project and provide feedback during the “CAHME Update” session at the AUPHA Annual Meeting, to be held Thursday, June 3, 2010 from 8:00-10:00am in Grand Ballroom I at the Portland Hilton. At that time we will provide more information and hope to engage you in discussion around this important topic.
If you are unable to attend the session, we still want your input. We will be surveying program directors shortly after the Annual Meeting to gauge overall interest in this endeavor.
In the meantime, feel free to respond here on this blog. We look forward to hearing from you.