Rural HIT Program Offers Education Assistance for Students

Individuals interested in Health Information Technology (HIT) now have an opportunity to further their education either at PCC or through online learning while receiving scholarship funds thanks to cooperation among four organizations.  Southeastern Colorado Area Health Education Center (SECAHEC), Valley Citizen’s Foundation for Health Care (dba Rio Grande Hospital), Pueblo Community College (PCC) and Data Services for Healthcare (DaSH) have teamed up to offer the program that is supported by federal funds from Health Resources and Services Administration.
The goal of this program is to develop a consistent pool of highly qualified HIT workforce to provide continual support to rural providers and ensure rural Colorado facilities have an EHR (Electronic Health Record) infrastructure that will meet future needs.

The scholarship covers health information technology courses at Pueblo Community College to address the identified need for HIT workforce in rural communities, to support the implementation, use and security of Electronic Health Records (EHR) in reaching and sustaining the EHR Meaningful Use stages.

Meaningful Use is the set of standards set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Incentive Programs, which oversee the use of electronic health records, and the methods eligible providers and facilities can participate in incentive payments by meeting the established criteria.

Rural Colorado communities have struggled in their efforts to participate in Meaningful Use; they are smaller communities with fewer resources available, for training or recruiting HIT professionals, to the more remote parts of our state.

Further information and scholarship applications are available at www.secahec.org

Deadline:   July 15, 2014 for Fall 2014 semester
                    November 15, 2014 for Spring 2015 semester

Click here for more information

For more information, please call 719-544-7833 or contact Crystal.Rider@secahec.org

SECAHEC, a 501c3 nonprofit based in Pueblo, serves a 16-county region of southern Colorado with programs designed to improve health and health care.