North Carolina Community Health Center Association

1. Introduction to Health IT This module provides a definition of health IT, the Federal Government's vision for it, and the benefits of health IT implementation.

2. Getting Started This module addresses goals and objectives for health IT adoption and other startup concerns, such as quality improvement, readiness assessment, staffing, feasibility analysis, and strategies for financing health IT.

3. Opportunities for Collaboration This module defines health center controlled networks and health information exchange organizations and provides information on how health IT sites can develop relationships with these entities.

4. Project Management and Oversight  This module focuses on questions related to developing a project plan, establishing effective communication, selecting project management tools, and documenting project activities.

5. Planning for Technology Implementation This module focuses on mapping workflow, vendor selection including drafting RFPs/RFIs, conducting vendor and technology assessments, and negotiating vendor contracts.

6. Organizational Change Management and Training This module provides insights into obtaining stakeholder and management support for health IT adoption as well as developing and implementing training plans and strategies.

7. System Implementation This module provides information on the various steps involved with system implementation including performing a detailed workflow analysis, testing, revising policies and procedures, acquiring the appropriate go-live support, and ensuring proper data backup and redundancy mechanisms are in place.

8. Evaluating, Optimizing, and Sustaining This module describes implementation evaluation methods as well as those related to improving clinical processes and outcomes and how to use IT to drive quality improvement.

9. Advanced Topics This module provides an overview of health IT standards and standards development organizations (SDOs) such as HL7 and HITSP.

10. Open Source and Public Domain Software  This module provides an introduction to open source and public domain software solutions and addresses questions related to the systems selection, technical requirements, economic feasibility, staff expertise, and readiness for health IT sites that are considering open source systems.

11. Privacy and Security This module provides a primer on privacy and security considerations related to EHR system evaluation, selection, and implementation.