Health information management student placements: the supervisor perspective David Mangano, Kirsten Hinze, Rachael Sewell, Emma Parras, Michelle Cope, Maryann Wood, Emma Barker
Introduction Student practical placements, or work integrated learning experiences, are an important component of any degree as it is an opportunity for the student to assimilate the theory and knowledge they have gained during the degree in a workplace setting. It is also an opportunity for the student to practice and further develop their skills and knowledge in a safe environment, with the aim to ultimately produce work ready health information management graduates. Students have an opportunity to engage with Health Information Managers (HIMs) through placement activities including health information management tasks, work shadowing, projects and clinical classification, allowing the student to begin to develop their own HIM network. Placement programs are not possible without the ongoing support provided to universities by HIM colleagues who take on the essential role of placement supervisor. Several supervisors from both the La Trobe University (LTU) and Queensland University of Technology (QUT) health information management degrees were provided with a set of questions around benefits of placement, what works well, what could be improved and key messages for those considering becoming placement supervisors.
20 HIM-INTERCHANGE • Vol 10 No 2 2020 • ISSN 1838-8620 (PRINT) ISSN 1838-8639 (ONLINE)
What are the benefits to you (and your organisation) from hosting students on placement? Benefits to the organisation Supervisors have identified a number of benefits to both themselves and their organisations, including the opportunity to ‘give back’ or support the universities, as it is seen as a crucial part of the ethos of the organisation. On behalf of their organisations they note that the student can be an additional resource to assist in completing work that would not have otherwise been completed and to have evidence based practice applied to workplace activities. David Mangano, Northern Health, Victoria The right student can provide your organisation with an additional resource who enables work to be completed that otherwise may sit on the back burner due to time pressures or resource constraints. For example, students can assist with audits and general department projects. Over the journey, Northern Health health information management students have also assisted with the development of valuable resources such as manuals, training materials, procedure reviews and project communication strategies or material. The placement is also seen as a way of identifying the potential of the student to be recruited into their organisation.
