The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) and the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) convened a Task Force to address issues related to work force needs in the era of the electronic health record. AMIA and AHIMA also hosted a work force summit meeting in November 2005.

In February 2006, AMIA and AHIMA released a report summarizing the summit proceedings. The report entitled, Building the Work Force for Health Information Transformation, outlines a national action agenda to address work force challenges related to electronic health records (EHR) and the nationwide health information infrastructure. The report also contains targeted recommendations to healthcare employers, employees, industry representatives, government, and professional organizations for preparing the existing health work force to use technology tools and to ensure a sufficient number of well-qualified health information specialists to achieve effective health IT transformation.

Specific recommendations in the report include:

• Federal support for health IT adoption and training and legislation to increase funding for education programs, student
• Recruitment, and faculty training
• Leadership from employers and health IT industry representatives for on-the-job training and support for health care workers through
• Incentives and competency-based cost-effective training strategies.
• Development of standardized applied clinical informatics competencies to be embedded in academic curricula and continuing
• Education requirements for all health professions

A copy of the report is available here (pdf).

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Don Detmer presents informatics workforce issues to the AHIC Electronic Health Records Workgroup
September 25, 2007

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Wednesday, May 10th 2006 Presentations at the Capital Hill Steering Committee on Telehealth:
“Training a Health Information Technology Workforce: Addressing Pending Worker Shortages as Healthcare becomes “e-enabled”

• Training Handout (MS Word)
• Claire Dixon-Lee, PhD, RHIA, FAHIMA, American Health Information Management Association (PPT)
• Jock Putney, CEO & Timothy Baker, VP, Learning Management Systems (PPT)
• Raymond F. Rogers, Chief Executive Officer, National Center for Health Care Informatics (PPT)
• Charles Safran, MD, Chairman, American Medical Informatics Association and Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School (PPT)