Meeting & Agendas

Meeting called to order by Cynthia Colovas. Committee members introduced themselves. Cynthia Colovas welcomed everyone.

Minutes from last meeting reviewed. Sue Biedermann motioned to accept and Eileen Klein seconds. Members vote unanimously to accept minutes as written.

a. Advisory Committee Handbook- Norma Mercado, Department Chair for the HITT program, reviewed the advisory board’s responsibilities as written in the Advisory Committee Handbook. Sue Biedermann commented that the advisory board is a requirement for the accreditation. She added that the committee is very important in fulfilling the needs of the community and that it is required to meet twice a year. Eileen Klein, the Executive Dean of Health Science, mentioned that the program is working on recruiting new members to the board. Norma Mercado reported that she did have new members that were going to attend the meeting and hopefully at the next meeting they will be attending. She reported that she sent out letters to six people and only one of them did not respond. At this time, three of the recruits agreed to join the board. The new members are contacts recruited from the existing members. Kirk White asked that students in the program be recruited as well. Norma Mercado mentioned that she already had a couple of current and graduates students that she intended to recruit. b. Presentation of Student Satisfaction Surveys for past three years- In continuing with the second order of new business, Norma Mercado presented survey results from a Student Satisfaction Surveys. The Student Satisfaction Surveys were sent out to graduates from the past three years. She sent out 17 surveys, of which she had six responds. Five of the responds were complete and one of the responds was partially complete. The committee members reviewed the survey and offered input which may help the HITT program to meet their goals. During the meeting, the committee also spent considerable time reviewing the program survey with the group. They offered several suggestions related to curriculum such as writing skills, pluses and minuses of virtual lab, as well as other possible sources of practice records/charts for students. Kirk White made the comment and the members agreed that the survey overall, basically showed that the students had favorable results from the HITT program. It was recommended that Norma Mercado redo the survey to pinpoint exact responds from students whenever she decides to send out another survey. Eileen Klein agreed to work with Norma Mercado to create the new survey. CAHIMA has a survey that is required that it be sent out yearly. Norma Mercado will be looking into that survey. c. Copy of AAS Degree- Norma Mercado provided the final copy of the Associate Degree for the Health Information Technology program to the advisory board members. After having discussion regarding the workload in the degree plan, Sue Biedermann recommended that the program might need to work on the technical skills by having fewer lectures and more lab time, restructuring more practice, providing more charts to practice as well as having someone to grade those charts. Norma Mercado said she would look into her suggestions for the program. Eileen Klein recommended that Norma Mercado look into having more open labs possibly on the weekends. Anita McAuley, the full time faculty for the program, said that she did not know whether students would attend on the weekends. Norma Mercado said she would look into other options to provide the lab time for students to practice. d. Survey for Advisory Board Members- Norma Mercado advised the advisory board members that she would be sending them the link for an Advisory Board Member survey which is required for the accreditation.

Kirk White asked if the program was being marketed especially since the program is now offering the certificate and associate degree plan. Eileen Klein said that marketing is presently working on developing some postcards and bookmarks which will help promote the program.

Meeting adjourned. Next meeting date May 7th, 2010, 7-9 a.m.