Backbone of Rural HIT Training is Community Colleges

The Obama Administration this week announced a new "memorandum of understanding" between federal bureaucracies that they claim will help rural healthcare providers build their healthcare information technology workforce, which is expected to grow by 20% by 2016.

In a vaguely worded press release, the White House said "the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Labor signed a memorandum of understanding to connect community colleges and technical colleges that support rural communities with the materials and resources they need to support the training of Health Information Technology professionals that work in rural hospitals and clinics."

HRSA Administrator Mary Wakefield, RN, said in the media release that: "This memorandum of understanding with our colleagues at the Department of Labor will build on existing collaborations to help ease the challenges of geographic isolation and staff shortages faced by rural communities and help move us toward our mutual goal of Health IT workforce development."

Federal Health Resources and Services Administration officials did not return calls by deadline Wednesday so details remain sketchy.  

Randy Smith, president of the Rural Community College Alliance, says he's not really clear on the specifics of the MOU, and only learned of it when HealthLeaders Media called. Still, he's happy the federal government is acknowledging the challenges that rural healthcare providers and educators face.

"Community colleges don't get a lot of attention and [if] you take it another notch further, rural schools get even less attention," Smith says. "We aren't in a media market. We aren't in a population center. The first step in making our case is letting the general public know what we are doing. So we are pleased that the administration is shining a spotlight on community colleges and rural community colleges in particular because we haven't had that before."

There are nearly 1,200 community colleges across the United States, and Smith says more than 60% of them are "rural serving." Those colleges will play a big part in educating the rural healthcare HIT workforce.

"Two-year colleges are really good at responding to the needs of the communities we serve. We are able to change and adapt our academic programs as needed," Smith says. "I don't know of a rural community college that is not actively participating with their local healthcare providers to make sure their needs are met. Without these rural community colleges, many of these allied healthcare professions and first responders and technical programs would not happen. We just would not have those professionals."

Not surprisingly, Smith says the big issue for rural community colleges is funding. "Finances are always an issue but it is not something that can't be overcome with partnerships. The local healthcare providers are very good at working with community colleges to share some of that cost," he says. "So that is an issue but most of the time if they need specific types of healthcare providers they usually step up to the plate and help their community college with the cost. That is happening now."

Finding students, however, is not an issue. Smith says there are plenty of eager students in rural areas who'd love to work in healthcare HIT. However, resources can't accommodate everyone.

It's fairly similar to the nursing shortage," he says. "The students are there. It's just the fact that we have to have the clinical sites, the on-campus facilities and the faculty to produce those professionals. It's the same way with HIT. We know the students are there. We've seen it. But we have to ramp up and have the facilities and faculty and clinical sites to make that happen."

"The availability of clinical sites for rural areas has always been an issue too because of the distances involved," he says. "Our rural hospitals can only take so many students and give them a good experience. Sometimes our students have to travel a ways to more urban or suburban settings to get their clinical experience and that can be a challenge."

"Faculty recruitment is not the highest thing on the list but there are times when recruiting qualified, experienced healthcare faculty to rural areas can be a challenge," he says.

When asked what the federal government can do to help rural community colleges train HIT professionals, Smith had a ready answer: "Obviously grants and funds are always welcomed."

However, he acknowledged that government budgets are tight and that "we have to learn to make do with what we have and do the best we can and try to partner with business and industry."

If the federal government does release more grant money, Smith says that funding should specifically target rural community colleges.

"They will release a grant for a specific program or specific service, but it is hard for us to compete against the urbans and suburbans because they have professional grant writers," he says. "Our folks wear three or four different hats at our rural schools and we haven't had grants targeted for rural schools."

Smith says an RCCA delegation that will include 25 rural community college presidents will visit Washington, DC next week to meet with federal officials on several fronts. If the federal government works with rural community colleges, Smith says, those colleges are capable of producing an HIT workforce. 

"Local community colleges are the catalyst for economic development. They are a clearinghouse for information for rural communities," he says. "If we can get those federal agencies to understand that fact, it is a benefit to everybody, including them."