A profile of the health information manager: a comparison between two states in Australia

The aim of this paper is to present a profile and comparison of demographic, educational and work characteristics of health information managers working in public hospitals in New South Wales and Victoria. A cross-sectional survey was designed to collect data from a sample of 141 health information managers (HIMs) from 41 NSW public hospitals and 165 HIMs from 30 Victorian public hospitals. Before analysis the data were split into responses from 'managerial HIMs' and 'coder HIMs' to reflect the differences in their respective roles. The results showed that public hospital HIMs are predominantly female, young and mobile. Differences in employment and education between managerial and coder HIMs are presented, as are significant differences between public hospital HIMs in NSW and Victoria. Casemix-based funding and computerisation of clinical information are considered to be the main drivers of change to the role of the HIM.