Launching: University partnership for health informatics

The University Partnership for Health Informatics (UP-HI) is a private-public partnership between the University of Minnesota and the College of St. Scholastica that builds on 11 existing health information technology (HIT) certificates and degrees. It is a newly funded University-Based Training Program enabled by the ARRA HITECH Act. The overall goals and objectives of this partnership are to: 1) rapidly train students to serve in all six HIT professional roles identified by the Office of the National Coordinator for HIT requiring university-level training, including: a) Clinical/Public Health Leaders; b) Health Information Management/Exchange Specialists; c) Health Information Privacy/Security Specialists; d) Research and Development Specialists; e) Programmers/Software Engineers; and f) Health Information Technology Sub-Specialists; and 2) enhance existing HIT certificates and degrees with unique features, including: program access, communication, and asset management through a shared web portal; improved alignment of course content and assignments with role-specific competencies; enhanced online delivery of courses, and enhanced training/mentoring through work context immersion and a journal club. This paper reports on the innovative features of this newly-launched program.