New group to address global health IT workforce training

A newly created international body Monday began work on developing a uniform training curriculum for healthcare information management staffers. The Global Health Workforce Council was established by the Chicago-based American Health Information Management Association, which hosted the first face-to-face meeting of council delegates. The effort is being funded by a grant from the U.S. Commerce Department.

“The curricula standard will guide educational programming and workforce training, and contribute to an increase in the quality and number of highly trained professionals around the world with expertise in health information management, health informatics and health information technology,” AHIMA CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon said in a release.

Marci MacDonald, president-elect of the International Federation of Health Information Management Associations, and a clinical information department leader at Halton Healthcare Services in Montreal, will serve as co-chair of the new organization, along with William Rudman, AHIMA’s vice president of education visioning and executive director of the AHIMA Foundation.

In addition to the United States, the council includes board members from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Scotland and the United Arab Emirates.

The collaborative was funded as part of a $300,000 Commerce Department grant awarded last year to AHIMA to “increase competitiveness of the U.S. health information technology industry abroad.”

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