Program Overview
The Health Information Management (C139) two-year diploma program focuses on providing the skills and knowledge needed by health information practitioners by preparing graduates to participate in the collection and organization of health information. This program is fully accredited by the Canadian Health Information Management Association (CHIMA).
The Health Information Management curriculum content emphasizes:
- Biomedical sciences
- Health informatics
- Health record systems
- Medical classification systems and coding
- Data collection
- Statistical analysis and presentation
- Health-care legislation
Health Information Management practitioners:
- Work with health-care providers and stakeholders to transition from the paper health record to the electronic health record
- Develop, implement and maintain health information systems
- Protect patient information and promote confidentiality awareness
- Control the release of medico-legal information
- Evaluate standards of documentation according to established criteria
- Provide essential information for clinical research, quality improvement, utilization review, budgeting and other administrative applications
PROGRAM STANDARDS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES
The graduate has reliably demonstrated the ability to:
- Keep current with relevant local, national and global health care and health information management issues, trends, technologies and standards to support health information management systems and processes and guide professional development.
- Assess personal health information from individual client visits for accuracy, completeness and consistency using knowledge of biomedical sciences, medical diagnoses and interventions, causes of diseases, and medical terminology, abbreviations and acronyms.
- Apply current, accurate codes and standards to relevant personal health information from individual client visits using health information, coding, classification and abstracting systems proficiently.
- Comply with the legal obligations, as well as with the professional, ethical and organizational standards that ensure privacy, security and confidentiality in the access, retention, storage and disposal of personal health information.
- Contribute to the development, implementation and evaluation of health information management practices, policies and processes to support client care, organizational goals, operations, and regulatory compliance.
- Participate in maintaining the completeness, accuracy, consistency, timeliness and integrity of health information throughout the management of its lifecycle.
- Use knowledge of systems interoperability standards, database architecture, software versioning, classification and terminology mapping, data collection requirements, legal obligations, and the health information management lifecycle, and apply fundamental project management principles and practices to support the procurement and implementation of health information management systems.
- Retrieve and release personal health information in response to legitimate requests, in accordance with statutory requirements, and within specified deadlines.
- Participate in the retrieval, analysis and presentation of relevant health information to stakeholders to support organizational decision-making, epidemiological studies and clinical research.
- Work professionally, ethically and collaboratively with stakeholders and as a member of the interdisciplinary health care team, within a structured, regulated and evolving system of health care, to enhance the collection, distribution, use, security and awareness of quality health information and its impact on client care.
- Use current and emerging technologies to support the management, analysis and presentation of health information.
Canada,Ontario 
