HHS Announces Awards of $84 million to 16 Academic Institutions for Health IT Workforce Training...

Colleagues,

As noted earlier, this is a special time on the federal funding calendar ...

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has just announced another major set of awards related to Health Information Technology training and education ...

ENJOY!

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... Awards totaling $84 million to 16 universities and junior colleges will support training and development of more than 50,000 new health IT professionals...

... These awards are funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment (or "Stimulus) Act of 2009, and are part of the $2 billion effort to achieve widespread meaningful use of health IT and provide for the use of an electronic health record (EHR) for each person in the United States by 2014 ... Awardees and award amounts are shown below:

Community College Consortia Program ($36 million):

The Community College Consortia Program provides assistance to five regional recipients to establish a multi-institutional consortium within each designated region. The five regional consortia will include 70 community colleges in total. Each college will create non-degree training programs that can be completed in six months or less by individuals with
appropriate prior education and/or experience ... An additional $34 million is available for
year two funding of these programs after successful completion of a mid-project evaluation.

Institution	Amount of Award
Bellevue College Bellevue, Washington	$ 3,364,798
Cuyahoga Community College District Cleveland, Ohio	$ 7,531,403
Los Rios Community College District Sacramento, California	$ 5,435,587
Pitt Community College Winterville, North Carolina	$10,901,009
Tidewater Community College Norfolk, Virginia	$ 8,492,793

Curriculum Development Center ($10 million):

The Curriculum Development Centers will develop educational materials for key health IT topics to be used by the members of the Community College Consortia program. The materials will also be made available to institutions of higher education across the country ...

Institution	Amount of Award
University of Alabama at Birmingham Birmingham, Alabama	$1,820,000
The Trustees of Columbia University New York City, New York	$1,820,000
Duke University Durham, North Carolina	$1,820,000
Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland	$1,820,000
Oregon Health & Science University Portland, Oreg	$2,720,000*

University-Based Training Programs ($32 million):

The University-based training programs will produce trained professionals for vital, highly specialized health IT roles. Most trainees in these programs will complete intensive
courses of study in 12-months or less and receive a university-issued certificate of advanced training. Other trainees supported by these grants will study toward masters’ degrees.

Institution	Amount of Award
The Trustees of Columbia University New York City, New York	$3,786,677
University of Colorado Denver College of Nursing Denver, Colorado	$2,622,186
Duke University Durham, North Carolina	$2,167,121
George Washington University District of Columbia	$4,612,313
Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana	$1,406,469
Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland	$3,752,512
University of Minnesota Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota	$5,145,705
Oregon Health & Science University Portland, Oregon	$3,085,812
Texas State University San Marcos, Texas	$5,421,205

Competency Examination Program ($6 million):

This program will support the development and initial administration of a set of health IT competency examinations. The program will create an objective measure to assess basic competency for individuals trained in short-term, non degree health IT programs and for members of the workforce seeking to demonstrate their competency in certain health IT workforce roles.