Education review: Crossing borders--delivering health information management education across state lines

Since its inception in 1992, the associate degree program in health information management (HIM) of the University of Alaska Southeast has been distance delivered across the state; it was the first distance degree program to be approved by the university's Board of Regents. In the spring of 1995, the HIM program was selected to be part of a pilot brokering project of the Western Interstate Consortium on Higher Education, in which member institutions would offer programs to or receive programs from other member institutions. The university's HIM program was selected by New Mexico and Wyoming, and classes for two groups of Wyoming students were initiated in the fall of 1995. The article summarizes the results of the project for the HIM program and future plans. It also provides an overview of some of the challenges facing institutions with out-of-state or multistate program delivery.