Veteran Opportunities for Success in Health Information Management

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2018

The County of Los Angeles Department of Health Services (DHS) Health Information Management (HIM) Division availed itself of the County’s Veteran Intern Program to create and implement the “Veteran Opportunities for Success in Health Information Management” Initiative. For many years, DHS-HIM had been contracting, with great expense, the important functions of medical record document scanning and a major portion of the Enterprise Master Patient Index (EMPI) operation. Despite a tremendous effort to meet the demands of both functions with existing staff, DHS-HIM had been unable to do so. DHS-HIM reviewed the needs of both programs and determined that these could be resolved by hiring staff who are highly trained in logistics and operations, as well as staff who are experienced working with a high degree of precision and detail. All of the required attributes were found in our pool of veterans seeking county employment. Hence, the HIM Division hired over 35 veterans within a compressed period of time and the Division has now resolved both issues.