The La Trobe University Health Information Management (HIM) academics hosted an intimate morning tea to celebrate HIM Awareness week, which ran from the 21-25 August. HIM Awareness week provided a great opportunity to celebrate the HIM profession and its strong advocacy for the authorised use of quality health information in healthcare.
The offering of fresh fruit satisfied those electing for healthier options whilst the tempting toffee-flavoured cheesecakes were eaten with equal relish. The attendees captured intergenerational representation from our HIM student HIM academics and the Chair of Digital Health as well as the hybrid work environment with the Head of the Department of Public Health and HIM academics joining the celebrations online.
HIM professionals share their expertise in the management and provision of health information for patient care, business and secondary purposes. They position themselves in progressive health areas such as data analytics, health informatics, information privacy, population health reporting, health classification and casemix.
This morning tea event provided an important opportunity to share information about the forthcoming International Federation of Health Information Management Congress scheduled for late October and hosted in Brisbane. The HIM academic team will feature strongly delivering research papers on innovative initiatives in professional practice, defining career success from HIM professional perspectives, clinical coding competencies, the utilisation of health datasets for research and other purposes and exploring the educational attributes of the HIM profession.
The HIM discipline forms part of the DIGHIM (Digital Health and Information Management) cluster active in health research and partnering with health industry representatives such as Northern Health. There are two main graduate programs offered by the HIM team; the Bachelor of Health Information Management 3-year undergraduate degree that can be studied online or face-to-face with in-person placement components offering work integrated learning experiences and the Master of Health Information Management program offering a graduate entry coursework Master’s degree studied over 2 years full-time and part-time equivalents with in-person placement.
To find out more about the HIM profession contact Natasha Prasad for the Undergraduate program and Jenn Lee for the Master’s program. Offers are currently open!
Jenn Lee, B.N, GradDipAppSc(HIM) (USyd), MAdE (UTS), CHIA
Senior Lecturer Health Information Management, College of Science, Health & Engineering, La Trobe University