Kansas Health Institute | Information For Policy Makers. Health for Kansans.

OVERLAND PARK — Johnson County Community College is looking to enroll 20 students in a new course aimed at training health information technology workers.

Demand for the workers is expected to be high due to new federal incentives encouraging doctors, hospitals and other providers to adopt the technology by 2014.

Deb Elder, HIT grant project director for the college, said the first classes in the six-month training program are scheduled to begin Sept. 27. A second class will form in January.

“This is very much a pilot program so we’re limiting ourselves, at first, to 20 students,” Elder said. “We’re targeting 35 for the January phase, but we may have more. I already have 29 on a list of people who’ve already expressed an interest – and that’s without getting the word out.”

Elder said she hopes to have an enrollment form on the training program’s website next week.

Johnson County Community College is part of the Midwest Community College Health Information Technology Consortium, a group led by Cuyahoga Community College in Ohio.

The consortium, underwritten by a $7.5 million federal grant, will train students in 10 midwestern states, including Kansas and Missouri.

The curriculum, Elder said, is still being developed by the Office of the National Coordinator from Health Information Technology.

She said Johnson County Community College hopes to produce 110 graduates by 2012. The consortium schools have a collective target of 5,400 graduates by then.

A web-based version of the course will be available in January, if all goes according to plan.

The initial course, Elder said, is limited to students with experience in either health care or information technology.

“It’s such a short program and there’s so much information, we’re really not going to have time to get into the basics,” she said. “This is going to be comparable to a master’s level program.”

The course will train students for one of two health information roles:

• Management redesign specialist.

• Systems specialist.

Redesign specialists will be trained to help health care providers navigate the switch to electronic medical records. Systems specialists will help maintain the new systems.

“Each role has three parts to it,” she said. “You’re going to need to understand the health care language and culture, IT systems, and the nature of being a good consultant. You’re going to have to be able to talk to all kinds of people, make decisions and be a good problem solver. ”

The classes will meet three hours a night, two nights a week.

Elder said students will have access to several internship opportunities.

Other schools participating in the Midwest Community College Health Information Technology Consortium are:

• Cincinnati State Technical and Community College; Cincinnati, Ohio.
• Columbus State Community College, Columbus, Ohio.
• Delta College, University Center, Mich.
• Des Moines Area Community College, Des Moines, Iowa.
• Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
• Lansing Community College, Lansing, Mich.
• Macomb Community College, Warren, Mich.
• Madison Area Technical College, Madison, Wis.
• Metropolitan Community College, Omaha, Neb.
• Milwaukee Area Technical College, Milwaukee, Wis.
• Moraine Valley Community College, Palos Hills, Ill.
• Normandale Community College, Bloomington, Minn.
• Sinclair Community College, Dayton, Ohio.
• St. Louis Community College, St. Louis, Mo.
• Wayne County Community College, Detroit, Mich.