Evaluation of the Bellevue College Consortium’s HeW TAACCCT Grant Second Interim Report: Findings

“The Health eWorkforce Consortium led by Bellevue College in Bellevue, Washington, is using a Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to elevate [HIT] workforce development capacity on a local, state, and national level. On a local level, the Consortium is building the capacity of nine participating community colleges to prepare students for careers involving [HIT]. At the state and national levels, multiple activities are underway….

At the participating colleges, the TAACCCT grant is supporting the development of nine new [HIT] programs at six colleges and the infusion of instructional content related to electronic healthcare information systems into 13 pre-existing nursing and allied health programs at eight colleges (referred to in this report as `HIT infusion’). Social Policy Research Associates (SPR) is leading the effort to evaluate these grant-funded programs…” (p.5).

The study administered four web and telephone-based surveys in June and July 2014 to assess current and former students’ satisfaction with the curriculum and instruction of both the HIT and the HIT Infusion programs. The study surveyed 235 students in the grant-funded nursing and allied health programs and 26 students in the new HIT programs funded by TAAACCCT.

“The online survey of current students asked students to describe their previous educational and work experiences and their current career goals; it also asked them to indicate their level of satisfaction with HIT curriculum content, instructional quality of the HIT curriculum, and student supportive services…. The telephone survey of program completers asked students to describe any jobs held since completing the program, to rate the relevance to their current jobs of the HIT knowledge and skills they had gained from the program, to outline plans for future employment and education, and to suggest ways to make the HIT content of the program more relevant to skills and knowledge needed on the job” (p.6).

“This second interim report to the Consortium summarizes findings from the first of several rounds of surveys conducted with students enrolled in the grant-funded programs at the nine participating community colleges” (p.1).

(Abstractor: Author and Website Staff)

Full publication title: Evaluation of the Bellevue College Consortium’s HeW TAACCCT Grant Second Interim Report: Findings from First Round of Student Surveys

The report presents findings for the nursing and allied health HIT Infusion program and the new HIT program. For the nursing and allied health program, findings include: • “Respondents are generally satisfied with the way the health IT content is presented and the way it is integrated into the rest of the program. When asked how this aspect of the program might be improved, they suggested expanding the amount and scope of the HIT content, increasing opportunities for hands-on learning with electronic health records systems, allowing more opportunities for interactive discussion of HIT issues, and selecting instructors for HIT content who have more experience and expertise in this field” (p.1). • “A large majority of the 97 program completers reported being employed. Eighty-five percent of those employed said they were working in a field related to their training; of these, more than 85 percent said that their employer used electronic health records and that they themselves use electronic health records as part of their job duties” (p.2). For the new HIT program, the study shows that: • “Only roughly half of all respondents said that the program met their overall needs. A relatively high number of current participants indicated some dissatisfaction with the clarity of the instruction, felt the course content was too difficult, and didn’t think the program content was taught in an “engaging” way” (p.2). • “Although they had completed a grant-funded certificate, most HIT program completers who responded to the survey were still enrolled in school.... Only half of the respondents indicated that they currently were planning careers related to HIT” (p.3). “The responses to the first round of surveys … show that current and former students [in the nursing and allied health program] believe that improved knowledge about healthcare information systems and practice using electronic medical record systems makes them better prepared to work in the healthcare field and improves their job performance. To date, students express high levels of satisfaction with the current level of infusion of HIT content into their programs but suggest that the programs expand that content and increase the amount of attention given to hands-on practice with EHRs throughout their programs….The picture for the new HIT programs is less clear, perhaps because so few students have enrolled in these programs to date…” (p.3). (Abstractor: Author and Website Staff)

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2014
• Author(s): Negoita, Marian; Kogan, Deborah; and Bollella, Allie.
• Organizational Author(s): Social Policy Research Associates
• Funding Source: U.S. Department of Labor
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Long Dang
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies