A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry

Anyone here taken or in the WGU informatics program? - sm

Posted: Aug 23, 2012

I have my AA in HIT and have my RHIT and I'm looking at the WGU program to get my RHIA. Has anyone taken or in this program? I see that this program has a lot of computer courses and computer certifications. I'm kind of worried about that part as I've never been good with computers and have a hard time retaining computer knowledge. Any experience with this program?

Someone here did say they were in the program. - Question for you, though.

[ In Reply To ..]
Could you give examples of "never been good with computers" and "have a hard time retaining computer knowledge?"

How about examples of things you are good with? "I am good with ____" and "it is easy for me to retain ______ knowledge."

The reason I ask is that I am an informaticist and don't really understand why computer knowledge is any different from any other kind of knowledge. Yet, on the job, I encounter loads of people -- doctors included -- who throw up their hands and say "I'm not good with computers."

And what kind of computer training have you had? How to use Word? It might be that if you do not know much about computers, you would think you were not good with them.

You might want to check out - ONC-NTDC

[ In Reply To ..]
I found this resource on AHDI's website. It is a great source for free CECs but is geared toward the health IT workforce. It is free to sign up and take the components (you don't get credit and it's not going to lead you to a certificate or degree or anything). It might give you a good overview or starting point for informatics as far as trying some of the components to see if it would be a good fit for you. There is a component on computer science. The link is below.

AA in HIT with RHIT not good with computers? - scratching head...

[ In Reply To ..]
Hmmm, please excuse my ignorance, but both HIT and RHIT scream computers, at least to me. You must be better with computers than you realize... Or do neither of those require much computer knowledge?

Depends . . . - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
I think it depends a lot on the HIT program, when it was completed, and the working environment.

Until recently, HIT programs focused on paper records, stuffing them on shelves, collecting statistics on paper, totalling them up with a calculator, and so forth. There was little, if any, computer training in those programs until recently, when colleges began requiring "computer" classes that mostly just involved basic, secretarial-type use of Microsoft Office products.

Many medical records employees use computers only in limited situations, with training only in the specific end-use of certain limited applications, and they do not go beyond that. I would say the majority can hardly use email, cannot create a folder, and are almost unable to use the internet. There are many who cannot use Excel at all and far more who use it incorrectly, like it is just a piece of paper with lines drawn on it. I have seen many doctors, even, who are so limited in their ability that they have someone print out the entire medical record at each visit simply because they cannot figure out how to read it on the screen. And, by and large, the majority of HIT employees still think an electronic record is something annoying that you have to scan pieces of paper into--they still do not use and do not understand anything else.

If someone learned and worked in that kind of environment, they might well think they were not good with computers simply because they had never had the right kind of training.

Another problem occurs when someone has a helpful person around who does everything for them . . . creating shortcuts, setting up folders, providing templates, etc. If you did learn anything in the beginning, you will quickly forget it because you have no reason to use it. It is very easy to start thinking that you're "not good with computers."

Most of the things we are "good" with are things we . . . already know. We think we are "good" with things we can already do, have done before, don't have to think about, and have been successful with. We learn to cook at an early age, so we think we are good (or at least functional) with that. If you already know how to type, then you're good with that.

Think about MT. If you are an MT, you'll say you are good at it. Were you always good at it? No, at some point you were not because you did not know how. You learned it and became good with it. You were brave and stuck out the training until you were good with it. But, some people will NEVER TRY to learn it because they aren't good with it already. Many people are unwilling to attempt anything they are not already good at. "Oh, MT! Hah! I'm not good at that." Well, how do they know? They saw the MTs at work and thought the work was impossible, or they had to transcribe 10 reports for an HIT class and it was difficult.

It's exactly the same with computers. If your exposure to computer education consisted of an HIT course taught by an RHIT who had no computer background, that taught blithery, vague abstractions about bits and bytes, fields and files, made you type stuff into Excel with impossible instructions and no discernable purpose, and had ridiculous tests that nobody could understand, you WILL think you are not good with computers. You will never, ever want to try to do anything with computers ever again.

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