Winter 2013 Letter from the Editor

by Rebecca B. Reynolds, EdD, RHIA, FAHIMA

As the calendar and academic years are ending this is a great time to reflect on the past year and the work that has been done to advance health informatics and information management education. The Council for Excellence in Education (CEE) has published and vetted new curricula for the different levels of HIIM and as educators we are looking to the future to develop the workforce that is needed now and in the future.

Just as the educator community is looking to the future, the authors of the papers in the winter edition of Educational Perspectives in Health Informatics and Information Management are also focused on the workforce needs and the realization that workforce development and practitioner preparation for advanced roles all begins with the formal professional academic educational preparation. The need to continually look at the competencies and student learning outcomes to ensure that we are developing the HIIM workforce at the appropriate levels to meet industry needs is critical to all educators and the healthcare industry.

This issue includes several articles that reflect the focus on HIIM competencies and workforce issues. Two articles focus on manpower training and employer needs for workforce planning. Articles by Cortelyou-Ward et al. and Brooke explore the perceptions of knowledge about the health informatics competencies as well as looking to explore global competencies for health informatics education. These are both areas that we can look to share the expertise we HIIM educators have in curriculum development internationally but also to help us as HIIM educators expand our sites abroad to explore various practices in the delivery of higher education.

The plan for EPHIIM is to provide greater opportunities for publication by featuring research articles of interest in the health informatics and information management educator’s community. These topics include teaching, learning, and workforce issues in the health information field. We also plan to publish proceedings from the AOE Summer meeting as well as have a section for student research. The intent is to provide a mechanism for sharing best practices in teaching in a complex, evolving environment. Starting in 2014, there will be a rolling submission process and as manuscripts are approved they will be uploaded to the EPHIIM website. This will allow for greater efficiency and convenience for all. Consider submitting a manuscript now for review and potential publication in 2014.

Rebecca B. Reynolds, EdD, RHIA, FAHIMA, is chair and associate professor in the Department of Health Informatics and Information Management at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, TN.