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hands-on projects. Students will gradu- ate with a portfolio of what they’ve ac- complished during the program and can show prospective employers the work they’ve been doing,” Dr. Turley said. Dr. Brixey says the program’s focus on team building helps set it apart. “Inherently, if you’re working in the


EHR arena, you’ll be working with teams. We strive to train students to be able to support one another,” Dr. Brixey said. Dr. Turley says nurses, medical stu- dents, physicians, and medical techni- cians have enrolled in the master’s de- gree program.


Elizabeth Cuevas, NP, and Cheryl


Rubio will be among the first group of students to graduate with a Master of Science in Applied Health Informatics in December. Ms. Cuevas works part-time as a nurse practitioner at a Jasper urgent care clinic. Ms. Rubio has a background in HIT and hopes to work in a health clinic after she graduates. Ms. Cuevas likes the flexibility afford- ed by the program’s online format. She lives in Louisiana but is able to partici- pate in classes from a distance. She de- cided to enroll in the master’s program after participating in a challenging EHR implementation in a medical practice. “I’ve been engaged in adoption of an


EHR. I witnessed the lack of education during implementation. The people in- volved didn’t understand why we were doing it, the end goals, or the impor- tance. With my new skills and training, I want to be able to merge health care with IT and educate physicians about why the transition to electronic records is so important,” Ms. Cuevas said. Ms. Rubio hopes to assist physicians in achieving meaningful use. “With my training, I’ll be able to help


bridge the gap for physicians to allow them to adopt an EHR successfully and meet the requirements for the meaning- ful use incentive programs,” she said.


Cross training


ONC wants to facilitate training of more than 10,500 new HIT professionals an- nually nationwide by 2012. The commu- nity college programs train professionals with experience in IT or health care to work as practice workflow and informa-


July 2011 TEXAS MEDICINE 59


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