Workforce Development Program

Community College Consortia

About the Program

Providers will need an increased workforce of skilled health IT specialists as they transition to electronic health records (EHRs). To address this need, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) created the Community College Consortia to Educate Health IT Professionals in Health Care Program, which is a part of ONC's Health IT Workforce Development Program.

The Community College Consortia Program includes five regional groups – Regions A,B,C,D, and E – of 82 member community colleges representing all 50 states. The member community colleges received funding to rapidly create Health IT academic programs or expand existing health IT training programs that can be completed in six months or less.

*Note: participating colleges in region A's consortia are no longer receiving grant funds due to the end of the two year grant funding period. Colleges are still continuing their health IT academic programs.

The programs are designed for professionals with an IT or health care background and focus on training students for the following professional roles:

  • Practice workflow and information management redesign specialists
  • Clinician/practitioner consultants
  • Implementation support specialists
  • Implementation managers
  • Technical/software support
  • Trainers

Recruiting Students from Participating Community Colleges

The Community College Consortia Program graduates high-caliber health information technology professionals interested in supporting the growing and evolving health IT industry.

In all, the community colleges in the program hope to train more than 10,500 new highly skilled health IT specialists by 2012.

Learn about the exceptional students enrolled in our member colleges and how you can recruit them by visiting each Region's web pages: A,B,C,D, and E. Also be sure to check out the student testimonials [PDF - 235 KB].

When I was told the HITECH course is being offered by DSCC, I immediately wanted to participate. With the new requirements of everyone going to have to move to electronic health records, I believe it is very beneficial to everyone… Continue reading [PDF - 235 KB]

– Shahla Salemi, Dyersburg State Community College, Dyersburg