Is it worth your time, energy and money to pursue professional certification and recognition? Yes, in this competitive work environment all those fancy acronyms after your name on your resume can be helpful in setting you apart from others. Looking at the definition under Professional certification – Wikipedia, it described three types of professional certification: corporate, product and general profession wide. As a recruiter, I am often asked to find candidates who hold certain desired or required certifications. If you are recruiting IT talent for your department, you may want certain certifications on your staff. Here are some examples of professional certifications and recognitions in healthcare information technology that seem to stand out.
Last week, I attended an informative Web seminar sponsored by CHIME (College of Healthcare Information Management Executives) regarding their new Certified Healthcare CIO Program CHCIO, and I was quite impressed. This is the first certification program offered to CIOs and IT executives in healthcare. There are now 35 healthcare CIOs with the CHCIO credential. During the Web Seminar, the panel mentioned that the next exam will be held prior to HIMSS10 in Atlanta on February 27th. CHIME also has a fellow program FCHIME, which is recognition for contribution to the organization. There are 40 healthcare IT leaders with that certification.
HIMSS (Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society) started offering their CPHIMS certification in January 2002 and now have over 1093 certified professionals. In the CPHIMS statistics, over 26% are CIOs and VP of IT/IS, but there are also CEOs and other executives, physicians, nurses, and a variety of other backgrounds. HIMSS also has several member advancement programs including HIMSS – Fellows and Seniors Member Advancement. If you have contributed to any HIMSS programs or conferences this is a good way to show your contribution.
Some other important certifications and credentials (excuse all the acronyms)
- ACHE, (American College of Healthcare Executives) has their prestigious FACHE credentialing and board certifies individuals in healthcare management.
- Health Information Management professionals look to AHIMA (American Health Information Management Association) for adding needed certifications RHIA, RHIT, CCA, CCS, CCS-P, CHDA, CHPS for their area.
- The PMP credential from the PMI (Project Management Institute) has been a very desirable certification and will continue to be valuable as more and more projects are added due to HITECH.
- Security surrounding the electronic medical record and other sensitive data has driven up the need for qualified IT security professionals and Chief IT Security Officers, the CISSP certification is required for these professionals.
I would be interested in hearing about any others. Hopefully, if you plan to stay in the healthcare industry adding a certification or credential to your list of skills makes sense.
Anthony Guerra says
Hi Bonnie,
Thanks for this great post. I listened to the CHIME CHCIO webinar as well and wrote up an item on it. https://healthsystemcio.com/2010/02/11/chime-develops-cio-certification/
What impresses me most about this program is the amount of work that went into its development. I think within five years, this will be a must-have certification for CIOs.
Brian Ahier says
The Community College Consortia to Educate Health Information Technology Professionals in Health Care program wants to create HIT academic programs at Community Colleges or expand existing ones. The goal is for students to complete intensive training in one of six roles within six months or less. Roles include:
Practice workflow and information management redesign specialists;
Clinician/practitioner consultants;
Implementation support specialists;
Implementation managers;
Technical/software support staff;
Trainers
I imagine that there will be some certification that goes along with this training, and although these will be entry level folks and mostly hired by the RECs, there may be opportunity for CIOs to find some gold among the dross.
Bonnie Siegel says
Thanks for the comments, the new wave of healthcare IT career development and certification by the associations and academia makes this an exciting time to be going into HIT.