As a result of meeting the Healthcare Information and Management System Society’s (HIMSS) rigorous standards for quality health IT or healthcare education, Belmont’s College of Pharmacy has been named as a HIMSS Approved Education Partner (AEP).
The College joins an exclusive group of organizations authorized to offer HIMSS-approved review courses and training programs to prepare candidates for advanced knowledge in health IT or healthcare. Additionally, this curriculum serves as a solid foundation to prepare students for the Certified Associate in Healthcare Information & Management Systems (CAHIMS) or Certified Professional in Healthcare Information & Management Systems (CPHIMS) exams. HIMSS sponsors both certifications.
As a HIMSS Approved Education Partner, Belmont becomes the only pharmacy school in the nation with a Healthcare Informatics concentration leading to an internationally recognized certification in Healthcare Informatics which may be obtained before the students’ experiential rotations, residency inquiries and job searches begin.
CAHIMS is a new health IT certification designed for emerging professionals within the industry. CPHIMS is a professional certification program for healthcare information and management systems professionals with more than five years’ experience in health IT.
Belmont’s program sponsor is Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Informatics and Analytics in the Department of Pharmaceutical, Social and Administrative Sciences Anthony Blash, Pharm.D., BCompSc, CPHIMS. Blash has created a four-course, web-based sequence of classes to prepare Belmont student pharmacists for the CAHIMS certification. The college saw its first two students certify at the CAHIMS level last month and expects twenty to thirty students to certify each year moving forward.
“Nashville is considered by many to be home to the U.S. healthcare industry, with nearly 300 companies providing healthcare synergies found in few other places,” said Blash. “If your interests lie in pharmacy and informatics, our program stands apart. With experiential rotation sites at the headquarters of the largest healthcare organizations in the world, faculty with experiences in the corporate boardrooms of many American healthcare companies and a Pharmacy / Healthcare Informatics experience facilitated by the current national chairman of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists’ Educational Steering Committee on Informatics and Technology, our faculty represents the pinnacle of teaching experience.”
Belmont will expand the CAHIMS certificate program in both self-paced and accelerated formats to professional pharmacists and other healthcare or IT professionals in the very near future.
“We are pleased to welcome The College of Pharmacy at Belmont University as a HIMSS Approved Education Partner,” said JoAnn W Klinedinst, M.Ed., CPHIMS, DES, PMP, FHIMSS. “By earning this AEP designation, The College of Pharmacy has demonstrated that its educational development activities meet the rigorous standards for quality as identified by HIMSS.”