The HIMAA Education Committee is finishing a very successful year during which it has addressed a huge agenda. Our strategy has been to:
- Reinstate lapsed sub-committees and working groups that are critical to HIMAA’s educational focus
- Update or properly define HIMAA’s HIM education-related standards for course accreditation, and update HIM professional competency standards for profession entry, intermediate and advanced levels
- Initiate a major project to identify CC workplace performance standards
- Improve and support professional development and credentialling systems and opportunities to benefit all HIMAA members.
Education Committee
Professor Phyllis Watson AM
Professor Phyllis Watson AM has made long-term, invaluable contributions to the HIMAA Education Committee, having been a member intermittently since the early 1970s. Her very significant academic and leadership contributions to health information management education, as an educator at The University of Sydney, and internationally via her multiple IFHIMA workshops for HIM educators in countries around the world, as well as her influence and efforts in establishing and promoting the profession’s formal education, collectively constitute a truly extraordinary contribution to the development and status of our profession.
Phyllis resigned from the Education Committee in November 2021 and members will miss her knowledgeable and wise input and advice. We wish her well in her other endeavours, which include membership of the Editorial Board.
New members
Following an Expression of Interest (EoI) process, the Education Committee has welcomed three new members. All have extensive experience as senior-level HIM practitioners and/or educators:
Dr Joanne Callen – Associate Professor (Honorary), Centre for Health Systems & Safety Research, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, NSW.
Louise Edmonds – Manager, Governance, Clinical Governance Division, Calvary Public Hospital Bruce, ACT.
Cassandra Jordan – Health Information Manager, St Vincent’s Correctional Health Parklea, St Vincent’s Health Network Sydney, NSW.
Professional Development Sub-Committee (PDSC)
The Education Committee has reinstated the PDSC which had been abandoned, without communication to its members or the wider membership, in around 2016. Following a rigorous EoI process, six HIMAA members were invited to join the PDSC. There was a larger number of responses than available places on the PDSC. All of the EoIs were exceptional and, as HIMAA values its member volunteers’ contributions very highly, the CEO, Jae Redden, will specially invite those not joining the PDSC to contribute their talents to other HIMAA committees and important projects.
The membership of the PDSC is:
Elizabeth Connelly (Vic), Andrea Groom (Vic), James Muller (Qld), Kara Pollard (NSW), Alexandra Toth (NSW) and Alexandra (Lexie) van Gemert (NSW). The CEO, Jae Redden, and the HIMAA PD Program Manager, Dreda Heard, and one or two members of the Education Committee also sit on the PDSC. The PDSC will liaise very closely with State and Territory Branch Executives.
The capabilities of the members of the new PDSC reflect an impressive breadth and depth of professional health information management experience and potential networking capacity:
Professionally – all have worked in at least two or three sub-domains of health information management practice
Geographically – all six have worked professionally, on the ground, in two or more states and/or territories.
Other Sub-Committees and Working Groups of the Education Committee
We will provide regular updates to members via HIMAA Matters throughout 2022. In the meantime, keep an eye out for an informative article on the work of the Clinical Coder Competency (Performance) Standards Working Group in the forthcoming issue of the now online HIM-Interchange.
We extend a big thank you to all members of the Education Committee and its Sub-Committees and Working Groups for their professionalism, commitment and amazing contributions!
Dr Kerin Robinson
Chair-Education Committee, on behalf of all members of the Education Committee and its Sub-Committees and Working Groups