WorkingNation logo with the tagline of "Covering the Future of Work"
DONATE
Search
EHR
Tags   
Tags 

Earn as you learn a sought after health care IT skill

Optimum Healthcare IT and the University of North Florida announce paid apprenticeship program
By Ramona Schindelheim
-

With unemployment at levels not seen in decades due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and underemployment affecting younger workers, it is easy to forget that there are still industries where qualified employees are in short supply. The health care industry is one of them, particularly in the field of electronic health records (EHR).

An EHR is a digital record of a patient’s medical chart and can include their “medical history, diagnoses, medications, treatment plans, immunization dates, allergies, radiology images, and laboratory and test results.”

EHR is considered a career with high-growth potential as more hospitals look to cut costs and improve patient care by going digital. There are more than 40,000 open jobs related to implementing, configuring, activating, and integrating electronic health records, reports Burning Glass Technologies.

Earn as You Learn a Sought After Skill

To bridge that employment gap and create a pipeline of work-ready employees, staffing and consulting firm Optimum Healthcare IT is announcing Tuesday that it joining with the University of North Florida (UNF) in Jacksonville to launch the first-ever paid apprenticeship program specifically for EHR careers.

The three-month apprenticeship will be open to students who graduate with a computer science or health care informatics degree. Accepted applicants will be hired by Optimum and paid as apprentices from the start of the 12-week training program, according to the staffing firm. A majority of the jobs are expected to be for roles as an Epic Certified Analyst, which can pay $90,000 or more annually.

“Technology is now playing a huge part of enabling clinicians and health care providers to have data readily available at their fingertips as they’re treating patients.There’s clearly a shift in health care to not only install EHR, but also to entirely do a whole digital transformation,” Optimum Executive Chairman Gene Scheurer tells WorkingNation ahead of the official announcement.

He explains that there is a whole new skill set needed to support that digital transformation and Optimum and UNF are positioning themselves at the forefront of that training. “There’s a lot of training that needs to happen right now to get those students coming out of college up-to-speed as far as what technologies are being utilized in the health care landscape. And not only the technology itself, but also the vernacular that’s needed to understand the terminology that’s used in health care.”

Paid Program Leading to Quality Jobs

The program will be hosted by UNF’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. The start date will be set after UNF finalizes its plans to reopen the campus.

In a statement, UNF President David Szymanski calls the partnership one of many examples of UNF’s commitment to helping graduates get quality jobs. “Thousands of current and future UNF graduates will benefit from this streamlined pathway to obtain great first jobs in the growing health care IT sector.”

“With the appointment of UNF’s first Vice President of Jobs, our University has a dedicated position in creating strong job opportunities for our students, and we are excited to be hosting America’s first apprenticeship program for electronic health records,” said President Szymanski.

After completing their training, apprentices will join Optimum project teams serving health care systems across the country. Optimum says that one of the major causes of the skills gap in health care IT is that hospitals are unwilling to take a risk on proven talent and the apprenticeship program will allow their clients to evaluate project workers before deciding if they want to hire them on their teams permanently.

“We’re looking at this opportunity to really grow the practice and provide a win-win scenario, a win-win for graduates coming out of UNF and anybody else of our university partnerships,” according to Scheurer. “And going into our health care system clients, giving them a resource that’s very well trained, very eager to learn, and has a nice baseline to come into the organization and make a difference.”

Related Articles
Get the latest from WorkingNation
DONATE
Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
Our Mission
Contact Us

© Copyright 2024 by Structural Unemployment, LLC dba WorkingNation

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.

Share Bio