Working to advance standards for health information management and technology workforce curricula around the world, AHIMA has founded the Global Health Workforce Council, which comprises members from 12 different countries.

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Launched in partnership with the International Federation for Health Information Management Associations and other industry stakeholders, GHWC will be made up of 13 appointed members representing a dozen nations around the world.

AHIMA officials say its members will work to ensure curricula standards are internationally applicable, flexible and consistent, and provide a basis for the health IT and HIM professions to be recognized by governments, higher education leaders and employers in any country.

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"The curricula standard will guide educational programming and workforce training, and contribute to an increase in the quality and number of highly trained professionals around the world with expertise in health information management, health informatics and health information technology," said AHIMA CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon, in a press statement.

A draft of the workforce curricula will be distributed for comment later this year, officials say. Country-level workgroups will bring stakeholders together to review and provide feedback on the global curricula standards and competencies.

"The standard will be developed through an open and transparent process that seeks input and consensus from country-level workgroups and stakeholders," said AHIMA's Vice President of Education Visioning William Rudman, co-chair of the GHWC, in a statement.

"We are thrilled that the GHWC appointed members are leaders from around the globe with accomplishments, experience and influence in the fields of healthcare, education, governments and associations with HIM, technology and informatics expertise," he added.

Rudman's co-chair is Marci MacDonald, CHIM, who oversees three clinical information services departments for Halton Healthcare Services in Montreal. She is the president-elect for IFHIMA, which is working on implementing worldwide coding standards with the World Health Organization. She will assume the presidency at the 18th IFHIMA Congress in Tokyo in 2016.

The GHWC structure includes two chairs; six regional representatives – one from each IFHIMA/WHO regions: Africa, Americas, Eastern Mediterranean, Europe, South East Asia and Western Pacific; and five at-large representatives from Germany, Japan,  India, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

In addition Rudman and MacDonald, the council consists of the following members:

• Adio Rasaq Adetona, chief health information officer, National Hospital Abuja, Nigeria
• Lincoln A Moura, Jr., president, International Medical  Informatics Association, senior manager at Accenture, Brasilia/Sao Paulo, Brazil
• Hussein Ali Y AlBishi, clinical coding specialist, Ministry of Health, Council of Health Services, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
• Claudia Pagliari, program director, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
• Sabu Karakka Mandapam, associate dean and professor of HIM School of Allied Health Sciences, Manipal University, Bangalore, India
• Sue Walker, course coordinator BHIM, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
• Rachelle Blake, CEO/president, Omni Micro Systems/Omni Med Solutions, Berlin, Germany
• Angelika Haendel, president, IFHIMA, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Berlin, Germany
• Yukiko Yokobori, head of the distant training division, Japan Hospital Association, Tokyo
• Fatima Abdulla Haydar Al Baloushi, operations director, Al Ain Hospital, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
• Francis Paul Kirubagaran, head of medical records, Qatar Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Hospital, Doha, Qatar

The Council's IT advisor is Mary Cleary, deputy chief executive, Irish Computer Society/ICS Skills.