Report: Meaningful use criteria = health IT staff gaps
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The U.S. healthcare industry is facing two emerging workforce challenges as it prepares to meet demands both from more patients for more care, and from consumers and regulators for costs, quality and other reforms, according to the Falls Church, Va.-headquartered CSC. The first is the shortage of caregivers and the other is a growing shortage of health IT workers that is becoming significant as the industry aims to expand the use of EHRs, health information exchanges (HIEs) and other health IT tools.
ONC's hiring projections give clues to the amount of health IT workers needed, according to the organization. The study cited a 2010 College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) survey which found that although 10.7 percent of respondents listed staffing as their top concern, staff levels and capabilities was one of the top three concerns of 49.1 percent of respondents and the most frequently mentioned second and third concern.
The biggest current demand for health IT staff are from hospitals and physician practices planning to implement EHR and HIE systems, so they can realize both payment bonus and penalty avoidance incentives provided by the American Recovery and Reimbursement Act of 2009 (ARRA), the study stated. On the supply side, the immediate challenges are responding to increased demands for more health IT staff. “ONC’s estimated need for 50,000 additional EHR implementation support staff, for example, alone represents an almost 50 percent increase in the size of the current health IT workforce (108,000),” stated the paper.
To help alleviate concerns, the ONC has budgeted $118 million to launch the ARRA Health IT Workforce Development Program, an initiative focused on turning out technicians and professionals to help hospitals and practices throughout the U.S. meet EHR meaningful use incentive criteria before 2020. To date, $84 million has been awarded to 16 community college consortia and universities.
“The net-positive from the ARRA-sponsored training programs will be an increased capacity among U.S. institutions of higher learning to train health IT professionals and technicians, followed by an eventual increase in the number if health IT workers for hire,” according to the study. The biggest downfall, on the other side of the coin, will be the delay. “The first graduates from the Community College Consortia Program [under the ARRA Health IT Workforce Development Program], for example, are not expected until March 2011, and many practices and hospitals need to start EHR implementations now if they hope to qualify for EHR meaningful use incentives.”
ARRA training programs will go a long way toward helping fill the expanding need for health IT staff as the industry modernizes operations, but they are not a “silver bullet,” the study stated. For example, to assist health IT staffing needs, the authors suggested:
- Train and develop health IT staff from within organizations;
- Fill in workforce gaps with skill sets from within the organization; and
- Explore alternative system implementation and operation strategies, including remote hosting, physician assistance from hospital health IT staff and consultants.
“Healthcare organizations with a head start when it comes to competing for staff will be those that are taking advantages of opportunities now – to affiliate with colleges and university training programs, launch retirement-alternative programs and accommodate staff lifestyles,” the report concluded. “The healthcare industry clearly needs more health IT staff to keep up with increasing demands for care and reform. However, the industry also needs to learn how to fold that growth into strategies that help those staff implement systems and change in more effective, productive and rewarding ways.”