The application of computer and information sciences to improve and progress the healthcare sector, public health, and individual patient care is referred to as health informatics. Storage, organization, preservation, retrieval, and analysis of healthcare data from a number of sources are all part of health informatics. The data analysis’ findings may subsequently be utilized to create real-world adjustments in healthcare institutions (Al-Aiad et al., 2020). Although there are some similarities between healthcare informatics and health information technology, there are also significant distinctions. Health informatics is the application of information ideas and procedures to daily circumstances in order to enhance individual or community health outcomes.
Within the US work force, health information specialists have a unique position due to being the providers of essential service that is now overlapping with the high tech sphere. In terms of duties and functions, these positions are ripe for expansion. The passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act marked the start of a technological revolution in healthcare information and informatics. From 2019 to 2029, employment of medical records and health information professionals is expected to expand by 8%, substantially higher than the average for all occupations.
HITECH has also created a demand for HI professionals to possess a diverse set of practical abilities as well as a broad knowledge base outside of the strictly medical field. Information technology, privacy and security, clinical practice, needs assessment, contract negotiation, and a variety of other topics should all be covered. Furthermore, we must strengthen our workforce capacity in all areas related to the skills and knowledge necessary for effective e-health and health informatics advancements, as well as accompanying change management and system implementation methodologies.
Researchers have grouped the opportunities, or job titles, for HI professionals together based on degree level criteria to make it easier to find what you’re looking for. An associate’s degree can be acquired in two years at a community or technical institution. This degree focuses on the fundamentals of general education while also giving some basic level instruction in the field. Some programs are only available to those with that title or job. A bachelor’s degree is earned from a four-year college or university.
These degrees frequently concentrate on broad areas, such as business administration, health care administration, and so on. A master’s degree is a postgraduate degree that is highly specialized in the field of study. When looking at the following educational groups and their respective work responsibilities and functions, it is clear that as educational focus grows more focused and specialized, each level and its accompanying titles and functions rise. The roles listed below are only a handful of the numerous available in the Associate-level groupings. Patient Access Specialists, also known as Business Office Associates in some companies, are on the front lines of the health-care experience. These individuals arrange, cancel, and reschedule appointments, check insurance, and register patients. The physician’s or advanced practice practitioner’s recorded dictation is transcribed into the electronic medical record by a transcriptionist.
Additional insurance verification and authorization needs, the filling of various medical claims, as well as management and consistent update on existing ones are all covered by insurance/billing jobs. The Release of Information (ROI) Coordinators receive, and process written or electronic requests for health information, ensuring that only applicable information is released in accordance with legal authorizations and the legislation (Erdil, 2019). The Health Information Specialist is in charge of document retrieval and archival, as well as record completion quality.
The next category of jobs and positions typically requires a Bachelor’s degree from eligible candidates due to a wide variety of factors. Data Quality Manager, Privacy Manager, and Senior Data Analyst are among the eligible examples (Hassan, 2019). The responsibilities of these employees often concern management or leadership on different levels, as well as dealing with sensitive information, coordinating between multiple departments or outlets and undertaking HR responsibilities, such as recruiting, hiring and training of new team members.
In recent years, however, an increasing number of companies are requiring masters degrees and above from their candidates to the top level positions. Despite the fact that a bachelor’s degree is regarded the terminal degree in health information, master’s programs have gained popularity in recent years. This pattern is known as educational inflation and poses an issue for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds that often cannot afford multiple stages of continuous full-time education (Hassan, 2019). Healthcare Informatics as a field is particularly susceptible to this trend due to the influx of ongoing research and constant evolution of these respective fields, separately and together. People who have finished master’s degree programs have obtained more understanding in company operations at a more strategic level. The positions in question include Chief Information Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, etc.
Overall, the skills expected from the HI professionals are various and numerous, resulting in relatively high barriers to entry to this field. Additionally, most of these skills can be categorized as hard: technical abilities that can be thought and practice through memorization and repetition. The evaluation criteria for these skills are most often objective, and as a category it covers the majority of information relevant for healthcare informatics professionals.
References
Al-Aiad, A., Alrawashdah, S., Alnsour, Y. & Alsharo, M., “Increasing the Effectiveness of Clinical Practices with Health Informatics: Systematic Literature Review” (2020). AMCIS 2020 TREOs. 63. Web.
Erdil, D. C. (2019). A comparison of health informatics education in the USA. International Journal of Intelligent Engineering Informatics, 7(4), 366-383., A comparison of health informatics education in the USA | International Journal of Intelligent Engineering Informatics.
Hassan, G. (2019). Health Care Informatics. International Journal of Internet Education, 18(1), 39-43.