Background: Employability, employment destinations and utilisation of knowledge–skill domains of new graduate health information managers (HIMs) have not been explored. Objectives: To capture the timing from course completion to employment and employment locations of a 5-year cohort of health information management graduates of La Trobe University, Australia, in 2017–2018; identify professional knowledge and skills used by the graduates in executing their roles; and map these to four domains of the health information management curriculum. Method: A mixed-methods descriptive study utilising a survey investigated early career pathways of new graduates of health information management courses from 2012 to 2016. Demographic data included age, year of graduation, lead time from course completion to employment, position title, number of positions held post-graduation and knowledge–skills used in the workplace. Results: Eighty percent ( n = 167) of graduates working in Australia with known contact details responded to the survey. Of these, 96.4% ( n = 161) worked in at least one “health information management-related” position since graduation. Forty-five percent ( n = 72) of graduates obtained a position before course completion, and over 94% ( n = 150) were employed in the profession within 6 months of completion. Sixty percent ( n = 97) of graduates had worked in two or more positions from 2012 to 2016. The large majority of new graduate HIMs (82.4%) were employed in the public healthcare sector in “health information management” (44%), or “health classification” (28.1%) roles. Most graduates (61%) had utilised at least three or four domains of professional knowledge–skills in the workplace. Whereas 16% ( n = 26) of graduates used, solely, their health classification knowledge–skill set, almost 74% ( n = 117) undertook some health classification-related activities. Only 16% ( n = 26) of graduates were over 40 years of age, and there were no statistically significant differences between Bachelor and Master (Combined Degree Programs) graduates and Graduate-entry Master degree graduates in terms of lead time to employment, number of positions held, type of employing agency and professional knowledge–skills utilised in the workplace. Conclusion: Graduate HIMs have very high employability, demonstrate job mobility consistent with the national trends, are largely represented in the public sector but have presence throughout the healthcare system and utilise most or all of the specialised domains of professional knowledge and skills studied at university.
Background: Health information governance (IG) in Australian hospitals was hitherto unexplored. Objectives: To determine hospitals’ health IG status and maturity in Victoria, Australia, identify drivers and barriers affecting IG adoption, examine electronic health data breach response plan usage and assess employees’ electronic data breach awareness. Method: Mixed-methods descriptive study utilising an online survey of directors – clinical/health information services and chief health information managers (HIMs) in Victorian hospitals, ≥50 beds. Results: Response rate: 42.9% ( n = 36). Fifty percent ( n = 17) of respondent-hospitals had an IG program. IG equally supported decision-making and risk identification and prevention. The greatest potential organisational damages from system disruption or failure were information loss (66.7%) and clinical risks (63.9%). HIMs in 15 (55.6%) hospitals had knowledge to monitor and detect electronic data breaches. Staff in 19 (70.4%) hospitals knew who to inform about a suspected breach. Most hospitals had mature health information-related IG practices, most (88.9%, n = 24) provided IG-related education, 77.8% ( n = 21) regularly reviewed data breach response plans. The strongest IG drivers were privacy-security compliance and changes to data capture or documentation practices (82.8%, n = 24); the greatest barriers were implementation complexity (57.1%, n = 16) and cost (55.6%, n = 15). Conclusion: These baseline Australian data show 50% of respondent-hospitals had no formal health IG program. Privacy-security compliance, and audits, needed improvement; however, most hospitals had well-developed medical record/health information IG-relevant schedules, policies and practices. HIMs, the professionals most engaged in IG, required upskilling in electronic data breach detection.
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