Who is Using the ONC Health IT Curriculum?

There is a Wide Audience

William Hersh, MD, Professor and Chair, OHSU
Blog: Informatics Professor

Who are the users of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) Curriculum? Clearly one audience is the community colleges who were funded by ONC to develop short-term training programs using the materials (82 originally, perhaps fewer now that ONC funding for the community college programs has ended).

Those of us developing the materials always knew there was a much wider audience for them, and this was borne out recently from a discussion thread on the public listserv of the AMIA Education Working Group. In early 2014, a list member posted a simple query: “Please respond to this message if you are using the educational content developed by ONC. It would be helpful to know what content you are using, the courses, and the name of the academic program.”

There were a total of 15 distinct replies, and I collated them, removing all the names of those who posted as well as their institutions. The responses indicated a great diversity of users utilizing the ONC curricular materials in a variety of contexts and in different types of training opportunities:

1. We are using the HIPAA and History material in coursework for Psychiatric and Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (MSN) students. – Assistant Professor, Nursing Informatics Specialty Coordinator, University
2. I use some materials on standards in a course for translational medicine students. – Professor, Health Informatics, University
3. We are using some materials for a new health informatics course for allied health undergraduates at a university in Botswana. – Professor, Epidemiology, University
4. I use the instance of the VA’s VistA in an EHR lab course. – Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Informatics, University
5. I used the material to develop a course on health culture and another on IT security for informatics students. – Professor, Department of Medicine, University
6. Our Health Informatics Program is using the instance of Vista. – Professor, Nursing Informatics, University
7. I am using sections for developing a Project Management course. – Assistant Professor, University
8. We are using elements of Components 1 and 2 in an introductory course on the health care system. – Instructor, Health Informatics Graduate Program, University
9. I am using portions for a Dental Informatics course in a Dental Hygiene Degree Completion Program. – Instructor, College
10. I am currently developing a health informatics course for MSN Nursing Administration Students and am planning to use some of the lectures. – Professor, University
11. I am using the Component 10, Fundamentals of Health Workflow Process Analysis and Redesign, in one-semester, 3-credit-hour, completely on-line course. – Instructor, University
12. I am using it in several graduate courses:
    1. Electronic Health Records – 4 unit course – Masters of Health Informatics,
    2. Applied Health Informatics – 4 Unit Course – Masters and PhD in Nursing Science and Leadership, and
    3. Applied Health Informatics – 4 unit course – Masters Degree Nurse Practitioner and Physician Assistance courses.
       – Associate Adjunct Professor, Health Informatics Graduate Program, University
13. We are using the content in our Introduction to Health Informatics course developed as a first course for certificate and graduate students, incorporating video for several of the content areas across the 15 week modules. – Associate Professor, University
14. ONC educational content has crossed the Pacific Ocean as well. I have used the following content:
    1. A. Bachelor’s Program in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) (Health IT Major)
       1. 1 Parts of Component 12 Units 1-12 for “Quality in Healthcare Organizations” class in the “Introduction to Health Care Systems” course
       2. 2 Parts of Component 7 Units 2-3 for “Hospital Services & Management” class in the “Introduction to Health Care Systems” course
       3. 3 Parts of Component 6 Unit 9 for “Departmental Information Systems and Management Information Systems” class in the “IT for Healthcare Services” course
    2. B. Diploma and Master’s Programs in Biomedical and Health Informatics
       1. 1 Parts of Component 1 Units 1a, 1b, 1c, 7a, for “Overview of Healthcare services” class in the “Fundamentals of Health Care and Medical Terminology” course
       2. 2 Parts of Component 1 Units 3a, 3b, 3c, 3d, 2c; Component 7 Unit 2a for “Operations in the Clinical Settings” class in the “Fundamentals of Health Care and Medical Terminology” course
       3. 3 Parts of Component 12 Units 1-12 for “Quality in Health Care Organizations” class in the “Fundamentals of Health Care and Medical Terminology” course
          – Instructor, University, Bangkok, Thailand
15. I am teaching a course this semester on clinical decision support systems (required for our MS and PhD programs in Health Informatics), so I have borrowed from several of the components: EHR Component, Unit 2 on CDS; HIE Component, Unit 7 on CDS; HIM Component, Unit 5 on CDS  – Professor, University

One challenge for those using the curriculum is the sheer amount of material. Related to this is the lack of an outline of the entire curriculum. I recently had the opportunity to collate all of the components and units within them into a single outline. You can view the entire list on the Informatics Professor’s blog.

This article post first appeared on The Informatics Professor. Dr. Hersh is a frequent contributing expert to HITECH Answers.