HIT Workforce Development

The technology industry anticipates growth in jobs required to design, install and maintain electronic healthcare record (EHR) systems. Nevertheless, there is a pressing need to train IT workers for the health specifics of this new field. Without adequate training, the workforce will have challenges meeting the demand that will increase as medical professionals come up against the transition deadlines.

To support the Administration's goal for full implementation of EHRs by medical professionals, it is essential to promote and support the critical training needs of a new workforce.

Policy Goal: The HIT tech workforce would greatly benefit from the enactment of tax credits for training employees who consult, and/or configure, install or maintain systems required by medical professionals to implement and maintain meaningful use of electronic health records. Specifically, we support:

• Individual tax credits: A tax credit for an individual who enrolls in a qualified training course could be modeled after the American Opportunity Credit (AOC) which provides a credit of up to $2,500 for qualified education expenses. While the AOC limits the credit to expenditures for classes taken at an "eligible educational institution," the individual credit should be provided to those who enroll in a "qualified training course."
• Business tax credit: A tax credit for businesses that incur costs for providing employees with a "qualified training course" could be designed similarly to the Work Opportunity Tax Credit; that credit provides a hiring incentive to employers in the form of a payroll tax incentive. The credit also could take the form of a general business credit, reducing the business’ tax liability on its annual return.

These proposals are intended to support full implementation of the meaningful use of EHRs by the healthcare community and thus lead to an improvement in efficiency and quality of healthcare, as well as increased employment in the tech community.