I am sure many Health Information Management (HIM) practitioners in the U.S. and HIM practitioners from the U.S. who are following this blog already know about an innovative tool for charting their promotional pathways. I had kept away this article after reading a news feed about it a few days ago, and wanted to toy around with this interactive tool before I could blog about it today.
In the U.S., the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects employment in the medical record and Health information Management (HIM) field to increase 21 percent by 2020.
With this expected growing demand for qualified HIM professionals high and for both HIM students and professionals seeking to chart their career course in the rapidly changing field of HIM, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) representing more than 64,000 specially educated Health Information Management professionals in the United States and around the world has unveiled Health Information Management (HIM) Career Map©.
This HIM Career Map© is a one-stop place to learn about HIM careers, where the field is now and where it is heading. Claimed as the first career map of its kind in the healthcare profession, it was made possible by working in a partnership between the AHIMA Foundation and the Center for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) and in part by philanthropic contributions from Career Step – “a leading online school with almost 20 years of experience providing career education specifically designed to help students gain the knowledge and skills needed to quickly transition to a successful career after graduation.” (Career Step 2012).
The HIM Career Map© is an interactive and visual representation of 53 current HIM job titles and roles that compose the scope of the field and 14 emerging roles in HIM arranged in a grid with six broad job families on the top row and four skill levels on the left side of the grid.
Any white dot in any square of the grid represents each HIM job title while a yellow diamond in any square of the grid represents an emerging HIM job title. Clicking on a white dot displays a rounded rectangle box pointing to the chosen HIM job title white dot. This box shows a description and details on the skills required, job responsibilities, education and work experience needed for success, and promotional pathways. More detailed description on this HIM job title can be viewed by clicking on the yellow box labeled ‘FULL DESCRIPTION’ at the bottom of the rounded rectangle box. Simultaneously, line(s) radiate from this white dot to other white dots or yellow diamonds representing promotional HIM job title(s) in neihbouring squares of the grid .
The following screenshots show three (3) views of this map. A larger view of each screen shot opens in a new tab of your current browser window.
introduction screen
Grid showing skill levels on the left, broad job families on top row,white dots for existing HIM titles and yellow diamonds for emerging HIM titles
HIM job title box and radiating lines to adjacent HIM job titles
The HIM Career Map© also indicates alternate titles for some positions due to the different terminology used in the industry. The map is driven by data from AHIMA subject matter experts, staff and an AHIMA member survey.
For full details of the HIM Career Map©, visit http://hicareers.com/CareerMap/ (this link will open in a new tab of your current window).
AHIMA hopes that the map will help students, recent graduates and HIM professionals looking for new opportunities to plan a path to success through the promotional and transitional career paths associated with them.
AHIMA plans to add emerging roles to the map as needed to reflect the current reality of HIM roles, pathways between the roles and connections to the direction in which the profession is moving.
I think this tool is simple yet a clever plan to graphically display HIM job titles and career pathways in a grid, and qualifies as a one-stop quick resource center and reference portal to check on HIM opportunities in the U.S.
References:
Career Step, viewed 5 July 2012 <http://www.careerstep.com/about-us>
Health Information Careers – Career Mapping, viewed 5 July 2012 <http://hicareers.com/CareerMap/>
