Electronic Records Drive Health Information Field

By Susan Erler, The Times, Munster, Ind.

May 7–Indiana University Northwest is stepping up its health information management program to help meet the needs of hospitals.

The university in Gary will use $43,000 in funding to add an online course and other enhancements to the program, which trains students to compile and record vital health care information, said Margaret Skurka, director of the school’s Health Information Management program.

Under increased federal pressure to insure the safety and accuracy of patient information, hospitals are moving to electronic record keeping, away from a handwritten system.

“Every hospital in this country is migrating toward electronic health records,” Skurka said. “That’s the wave of the future.”

Money from the Perkins Career and Technical Education grant will help cover the cost of an added online medical terminology course for the program’s associate degree students.

A virtual lab and a part-time lab assistant are also planned.

The two-year program accepts 24 students a year, and their training includes stints in area hospitals’ real-life settings, Skurka said.

Another 10 to 15 students are on a waiting list, she said.

Demand for health information professionals is expected to grow by nearly 50 percent within the next decade, said Claire Dixon-Lee, an official with the Chicago-based American Health Information Management Association.

In order to meet needs by 2014, an estimated 6,000 students would be need to be graduated each year, compared to the 2,600 being graduated now, Dixon-Lee said.

Helping to drive demand for workers is the move to electronic record keeping, Dixon-Lee said.

“Wherever health information travels, it will need someone trained to analyze it, disseminate it and manage it,” she said.

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