1. A DIGITAL SOLUTION TO THE EU/US SKILLED EHEALTH/HEALTH IT WORKER SHORTAGE The HITCOMP Tool and Repository

2. Background: EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative Memorandum of Understanding It started with a Memorandum of Understanding In December 2010, the European Commission and the US Department of Health and Human Services signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to: – Help facilitate more effective uses of eHealth/Health IT; – Strengthen their international relationship; and – Support global cooperation in the area of health related information and communication technologies In August 2013, two work groups were launched - Interoperability and Workforce Development Workforce Development

3. EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative Goals and Objectives Goals of the EU-US Workforce Development Workgroup: To achieve a robust supply of health professionals highly proficient in the use of HIT To assure current and future workforces have the required technology skills needed to be successful, and enhance experience and performance within the eHealth/Health IT Ecosystem To support an innovative collaborative community of public- and private sector eHealth/Health IT entities, working toward the shared objective of developing, deploying, and using eHealth science and technology To define standards, develop competencies and produce useful tools that support this work

4. EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative Membership Work Group Members represent 13 countries/regions Canada England Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Israel Italy Mexico Norway Scotland United States

5. EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative Working Together Members met every week for 20 months, in addition to extra meetings, conferences and presentations Three big challenges: – Evaluating and harmonizing workforce development standards, methods and tools – Mapping, synthesizing and resolution of competencies thousands of HIT competencies, hundreds of HIT roles, numerous HIT areas and domains, ensuring the efforts are compatible, consumable and coordinated

6. EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative: Work Stream The Work Plan In order to achieve the goal to define standards, develop competencies and produce useful tools supporting the mission of the Workforce Development Workgroup – We broke the work down into 5 steps: 1 Identify the setting 2 Identify Roles in setting; map US roles to corresponding EU roles 3 Collect existing eHealth/Health IT competencies 4 Categorize competencies 5 Review the categorized competencies for accuracy & applicability, identifying gaps where necessary

7. EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative: Work Stream Step 1: Identifying the Setting… We solicited several Settings where we could evaluate roles against Health IT competencies 7 Selection Criteria – Stable and consistent – Little variance – Organized similarly – Relatively common functions and definitions Short list of setting options included : – Long-term care – Ambulatory care – Rehabilitation center – Pharmacy – Acute Care – Clinics (Flu, HIV etc.)

8. EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative: Work Stream Step 2: Identifying and Mapping Roles We agreed to focus on those roles in the selected Acute Care Setting We collated and mapped the Acute Care roles from the US to those in the EU – Resulted in 250 unique Acute Care roles – Mapped roles in English and four EU languages Applied Categorization in order to map them to competencies – Domain – Skill Level – Type

9. We gathered competencies from 15+ organizations from both the EU and US which included competencies from: – Universities and Colleges – Federal/Government Entities – Professional Associations Resulted in the collection of over 3000 unique Health IT competencies EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative: Work Stream Step 3: Gathering Competencies

10. We manually applied categorization to all 3000+ competencies Categorized competencies into the following: – Domain (Direct Patient Care, Administrative, Informatics, Engineering/ICT, Research) – Area of Competency (e.g. Privacy & Security, Clinical Decision Support, etc.) – Skill Level (baseline, basic, intermediate, advanced, expert) EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative: Work Stream Step 4: Categorizing Competencies Used concepts of building blocks, ensuring a way to build upon a single competency, from Baseline to Expert

11. EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative: Work Stream Step 5: Evaluating Each Competency We filtered first by domain, evaluated all competencies in that domain from basic to expert, and then – Removed duplicate competencies – Removed those that did not apply or that were not strongly Health IT/eHealth focused – Reworded competencies to make them applicable Differentiate between the types of content of patient health records (such as paper-based records, scanned records, electronic medical record, personal health record, patient-supplied data, etc.) Define EMR and PHR Data versus information Know types of health records

12. To synthesize the competencies, we: Integrated Bloom’s taxonomy and adult learning principles into competencies Producing standardized competencies Making competencies usable in formal educational and workplace settings EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative: Work Stream Step 5: Evaluating Each Competency

13. Adoption of Competencies: We aggregated, catalogued and synthesized data into 1000+ targeted HIT competencies – Adoption after formal voting and consensus process – Adopted competencies are interoperable with educators, curriculum developers and workforce initiatives throughout EU and US – Poised for further alignment with existing industry standards, certification bodies and educational programs (i.e., apprenticeships, just-in-time workplace training, eHealth occupational coding, etc.) EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative Achieving the Goals eHealth is not just about systems, it’s about people Interoperability is not just a technical challenge – it requires a skilled workforce to make it happen

14. Identified the Acute Care Setting Mapped 250 Acute Care roles to comparable roles in both the EU and US Categorized roles into Domain, Skill Level and Type Compiled over 3000 HIT competencies Integrated Bloom’s taxonomy Synthesized data down to 1000+ adopted HIT competencies (total) Developed and loaded competencies into the HITCOMP tool EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative Review of Achievements

15. The HITCOMP Tool — an interactive HIT role‐level competencies filtering and research tool and repository http://hitcomp.siframework.org http://hitcomp.siframework.org Can be used by employers, educators, managers, recruiters, agencies, students, job seekers, current eHealth workers and more Open Source and free to anyone with access to the internet EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative HITCOMP Tool

16. EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative HITCOMP Tool: Real World Scenarios Use Case: 1 Hiring Manager – Has new nursing positions open – Needs all candidates to have eHealth skills – Nurses will be intermediate to advanced level Use Case 2: Technology College – Developing new eHealth certificate program in management, quality and improved outcomes – Wants to offer training to new students as well as current workers in health administration areas at local hospitals – Needs to create a structured educational program to fit these needs Use Case 3: ICT/IT Specialist – Has a financial background in ICT/Information Systems – Wants to transition to eHealth – Has heard Health IT/eHealth careers are in demand with small supply and many opportunities exist throughout EU and US – Needs to know what skills are needed for eHealth “dream job”

17. EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative HITCOMP Tool: Real World Scenarios Maria is a hiring manager and has several new nursing positions opened and she needs all candidates to have eHealth skills Potential candidates need to be proficient at an intermediate to advanced level to help the institution reach its technology goals What types of competencies should she use when writing job descriptions and placing the employment advertisement? How can she use the HITCOMP tool? Use Case 1: Hiring Manager

18. EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative HITCOMP Tool: Real World Scenarios A local technical college is interested in offering a certificate program in conjunction with a large regional hospital They would like to offer the program to current hospital workers in administrative areas, as well as new eHealth administration students The course curriculum will focus on the importance of Health IT on patient management, quality improvement and better outcomes What skills/competencies should the college include in this certificate program? How can they use the HITCOMP tool? Use Case 2: Technical College

19. EU-US eHealth Collaboration Initiative HITCOMP Tool: Real World Scenarios David is a mid-level financial services technical support representative who would like to develop his career He has heard that eHealth careers are in demand, as there is a short supply of qualified workers in health IT He has done research and learned eHealth opportunities are lucrative and stable He would like to know what skills are needed to make the move from finance to health IT He has heard of a tool that will help him land his “dream” job How can he use the HITCOMP tool? Use Case 3: ICT/IT Specialist

20. US POINT OF CONTACTS MERA CHOI, MERA.CHOI@HHS.GOV JAMIE PARKER, JAMIE.PARKER@ESACINC.COM CHRISTINA NGUYEN, CHRISTINA.NGUYEN@ESACINC.COM EU POINT OF CONTACTS MARY CLEARY, MARY@ICS.IE FRANK CUNNINGHAM, FRANK.CUNNINGHAM@EC.EUROPA.EU RACHELLE KAYE, RKKAYER@GMAIL.COM US/EU POINT OF CONTACT RACHELLE BLAKE, SHELBLAKE@OMNIMICRO.COMMERA.CHOI@HHS.GOVJAMIE.PARKER@ESACINC.COMCHRISTINA.NGUYEN@ESACINC.COMMARY@ICS.IE FRANK.CUNNINGHAM@EC.EUROPA.EURKKAYER@GMAIL.COMSHELBLAKE@OMNIMICRO.COM

21. THANK YOU EU-US WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT WORKGROUP RACHELLE BLAKE, PA, MHA, CEO, PRESIDENT AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, OMNI MICRO SYSTEMS, INC. AND OMNI MED SOLUTIONS UG RACHELLE KAYE, PHD, CEO, KAYE HEALTH CARE SYSTEMS CONSULTING SERVICES LTD