Developing a national census for the Health Information Professions in Australia

The need to improve data collection to delineate the health information workforce (HIW) was recognised by Health Workforce Australia (2013), and supported by a 2015 study that reported the need for a minimum dataset as the first stage in delivering a national census (Butler-Henderson et al. 2016). There is expert consensus in Australia that the health information professions include clinical coders, costing analysts, data analysts, informaticians, information managers, librarians, and other professionals who are emerging as specialists in digital health information systems. The broader scope of this research is to quantify and qualify the workforce in order to build a capabilities-driven workforce development framework to meet the changing needs of the health sector, and inform policy and capacity development.