68 college basketball teams meet, 67 games will be played, but only one team will win the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship! The 2013 NCAA Men’s Division I basketball tournament is underway! The Final Four games are April 6. The National Championship game is April 8th. So what’s your NCAA “Bracket” looking like? The NCAA “Final Four” round begins this week for; Midwest – Louisville. West – Wichita State. South – Michigan. East – Syracuse. So if you follow this annual nationwide college hoops, phenomenon – you are probably really excited at this time.
Likewise, if you are actively working as a Certified Electronic Medical/Health Records (EMR / EHR) professional and part of the Healthcare Information Technology (Health IT) Workforce “tournament”, like myself – you are excited also! These events consist of traveling from state to state engaged with hospitals and clinics, converting paper-based medical records to computerized clinical application systems. In addition, if you are also assisting hospitals and clinics nationwide for the adoption of these federally funded mandates for “meaningful use” incentives – more excitement! I Got Certified For Healhcare IT Jobs – you can too! – was my way of providing a guide about the professional path that worked for me and for many of my colleagues gainfully engaged in this industry.
Under way is Meaningful Use Stage 1, and Meaningful Use Stage 2. This very crucial adoption the healthcare industry is currently undergoing requires specific tasks for the Health IT Workforce “Dream Teams” for clinical and professional management application implementation of EMR components such as; ADT/Prelude, Ambulatory, ASAP, Cadence, Clinical Documentation, HIM, Procedure Orders, Professional Billing, Radiant, Reporting, Willow (RX), etc. These Epic EMR vendor specific named application components are examples of an all-encompassing EMR Implementation strategy. There are many additional EMR / EHR vendors such as Allscripts, Cerner, eClinicalWorks, GE Centricity, Siemens, McKesson, NextGen, etc. – that each utilize their particular clinical application nomenclature regarding EMR / EHR implementation strategy. Healthcare institutions clinical informatics governance decide which EMR /EHR vendor’s software they choose to implement regarding common goals towards improved patient safety measures and cost efficiency in seeking a ‘Certified EHR’.
NCAA Basketball athletes are trained for their specific sports “role” for their team. More specifically, they can be classified into the five positions: point guard (PG), shooting guard (SG), small forward (SF), power forward (PF), and center (C). The rules of basketball do not mandate them, and in informal games they are sometimes not used. They are grouped into two conceptual units: the offensive and defensive. These NCAA Basketball collegiate level sports programs are vast and most are trained, groomed and they play for many years at this level, but a relatively few amount of these athletes will be drafted to the NBA professional league… only the best of the best will make it!
Likewise, Health IT Workforce “Dream Teams” are trained, subsequently prepared and groomed for EMR / EHR Certification. This process assures the hospital clients are getting the best skilled and knowledgeable professionals to install, train, optimize, and provide on-going support of their chosen EMR / EHR system. Health IT Workforce Team members, more specifically are classified into “job roles” such as; Practice Workflow Analyst Staff, Trainers, Implementation Managers and Analyst Staff, and Technical Support & Software Support Staff. We are recruited and hail from states all around the country. My current assignment includes EMR Certified professionals from New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Ohio, California, Virginia, Texas, Indiana, Wisconsin…all coming together as a collective “mobile” and long-term temporary workforce. This particular Health IT Workforce “playing” season will continue on until our scheduled November 2013 “Go-Live”. Collectively, these are some of the smartest individuals you would ever want to work with – professional backgrounds include; Nurses, Pharmacists, Educators, Software Engineers, Medical Technicians and more (“It takes a Village, folks”). We are also equipped with what I call dual careers, based this vendor’s and hospital client’s requirement of being Epic EMR Vendor Certified, as well! Individuals from the clinical, technical, billing/coding, and education labor sectors will be “drafted” and subsequently hired by the Healthcare Industry….the best of the best are sought – knowing the path that will get you there is the key to success!
A successful EMR / EHR Implementation strategy and organization chart has many characteristics of this NCAA March Madness analogy I’m sharing with you here…or maybe after being in my 8th year as a EMR “Road Warrior” traveling around this great nation and being part of Epic EMR Implementation teams for many, many hospitals and clinics nationwide…my use of this T.V. and Internet media sports sensation currently happening, as a comparison, maybe a touch of my own “madness”…you be the judge! You’ll need to trust me folks – this analogy does make sense…If you could just see our Health IT Workforce EMR / EHR organizational chart “brackets”, our implementation strategy, and our “game plans” – you would better understand what I mean!
