GENESIS
How often do you have a chance to address a significant national issue, provide a compelling business solution and support the community all at the same time?
MISSION
We have a dual mission with a shared social benefit:
- Create the first business predominantly managed and staffed by alumni from icstars, a highly regarded inner city technology training program
- Help solve the most significant IT challenge today - health care
We will accelerate the health care transformation through access to unique, affordable IT resources and a brand new educational program not just for health care IT professionals, but for the entire health care ecosystem.
THE PROBLEM & OPPORTUNITY
Organizations like icstars, which produce traditional entry-level IT professionals, are struggling to place graduates in full time positions due to economic pressures, outsourcing and lower demand. At the same time, the health care industry is projecting massive shortages in qualified resources. They also face failing projects and widespread confusion over new regulations and mandatory progress reporting towards meaningful use. Hospitals typically list lack of resources, tight budgets and lack of training as their top concerns in their digital transformation.
Our goal is to create a brand new paradigm, leveraging a proven talent base to provide specific value-added services which address important pieces in the overall health care IT challenge.
THE SOLUTION
icHealth will provide an integrated set of health care services in the following areas
- Technology - specific IT and related implementation services targeted to health care CIOs, using specially trained icstars graduates
- Education - competency assessments, general training, and custom courses targeted towards all health care professionals
- Advocacy - social efforts to raise awareness for the general public and community leaders, including free online access for basic health care courses
OUR APPROACH
For resources, we will select icstars alumni based on interest and provide them with health care specific IT skills. We will leverage existing health care educational content, including existing content providers such as HIMSS, but also develop our own health care curriculum using knowledge paths.
With this new set of trained professionals, we will provide affordable technology services to the health care industry, focusing on highly value-added areas with most urgent need, including:
- IT competency training preparation for EMR implementations
- Business process mapping support
- Specialty support such as ICD-10 coding
A key insight is that the same curriculum we will develop for icstars alumni will be made available to audiences beyond health care IT professionals. Our training will be practical information that people need to know to be part of the solution.
As part of our advocacy efforts, other key training targets will include:
- General public (how hospitals work at high level)
- Policy makers / board members / community leaders (regulatory issues, expectations, key challenges, benefits of EMRs, etc)
- All health care professionals (how digitization helps improve efficiency, safety and quality)
ABOUT ICHEALTH
icHealth is an L3C company formed in 2011 by Dave Patzwald and Wolfgang Anderle. icHealth shares workspace and web presence with icstars, a leading job education program in Chicago.
For more details please visit www.ichealth.com.
If you’d like to speak to someone about ichealth services, please email dpatzwald [at] ichealth [dot] com or wanderle [at] ichealth [dot] com
