The Health Information Management program at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
About 1,000 graduates have earned degrees in the field since the program began in 1964 at the request of area hospital administrators.
It has grown from having one instructor and one clinical facility to a professional program with five faculty members, 14 clinical sites and management internship sites throughout the nation, according to Anita Hazelwood, program director.
Students today are learning how to implement electronic health records and “to employ various ‘bridge technologies’ associated with the migration path from paper to electronic records,” she said. HIM students are assigned to two clinical hospital rotations; one month-long management internship; and multiple alternate care facilities, where they learn and practice technical and professional skills.
UL Lafayette’s HIM graduates routinely earn a 100 percent pass rate on the national credentialing examination. “This allows them to use the credentials of registered health information administrators as they begin their professional careers,” Hazelwood said.
For more information, go to http://alliedhealth.louisiana.edu/academic-programs/health-information-m....