Published on October 3, 2009 at 6:55 AM
"Healthcare IT is long overdue, and the American people get that," said CCA President Harris N. Miller. "We need to get the workforce prepared so that HIT can help healthcare organizations eliminate mistakes, improve coordination and outcomes, and speed services to patients. HIT means healthcare better, cheaper, faster. HIT can also help the healthcare establishment evolve, with more services provided in the community rather than in the emergency room and delivered on a preventative rather than on an acute care basis. With 4,800 programs and over 200,000 graduates in a variety of healthcare fields, career colleges across the country are doing their part to build a highly skilled HIT workforce."
TechAmerica President Phil Bond agreed, noting, "The survey proves that in this case, the policy and the politics match up: America has already waited far too long to realize the benefits of technology in healthcare. When the investments are finally made, we may not have the workforce to fully capitalize on them. How many more lives and how many more dollars could we save with sufficient talent?"
Also of note in the survey findings:
- Forty-four percent of adults said that they have either personally experienced or noticed HIT applications in their doctor's office or hospital;
- Electronic medical records in lieu of paper are the most common type of application noticed--nearly six out of ten (59 percent) in the "noticed" group;
- Two-thirds of adults (67 percent) say they believe their own doctors or hospitals are adequately trained in HIT;
- College graduates (16 percent) and those with household incomes above $75,000 (15 percent) were twice as likely as those with high school degrees or less (9 percent) and those with household incomes less than $35,000 (7 percent) to have doubts about their healthcare professionals' training in HIT.
Harris Interactive(R) fielded the study on behalf of Career College Association from August 28 - September 1, 2009 via its QuickQuery(SM) online omnibus service, interviewing a nationwide sample of 2,175 U.S. adults aged 18 years and older. Data were weighted using propensity score weighting to be representative of the total U.S. adult population on the basis of region, age within gender, education, household income, race/ethnicity, and propensity to be online. No estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated; a full methodology is available.
SOURCE Career College Association