Health information management professionals' investigator involvement in research: barriers and facilitators

Research underpins and informs a profession's growth. Research and practice have a fundamental relationship involving knowledge production and its applications to a profession's work.

To investigate health information management professionals': interest in investigator involvement in research; exposure to, or opportunity for, research investigator involvement; areas of research interest; barriers to research investigator involvement.

A cross-sectional study design was utilised. An online survey elicited data on respondents': demographics, employment, roles; access to research information; interest and experience in research engagement; experience of barriers to research investigator involvement.

Of 112 respondents: 64.3% reported no research involvement; 35.7% had research team experience; 83.9% retrieved research information from the web; 73.9% had no role-based research component; 51.3% had been approached by other (workplace-based) researchers to access and analyse data. Barriers to investigator involvement were personal, organisational and logistical, with lack of time the greatest impediment (62.5%) followed by cost (33.9%), lack of confidence (33%) and not knowing who to approach, or how (31.3%). Research skill development was important for 14.1%. Clinical Coding and Classification Systems (13.3%) and eHealth (12.6%) were considered likely to benefit most from health information management-related research.

Health information management practitioners generally have interest in research engagement; barriers include time, money and confidence.

Provision of research skills and the anomaly of requests for facilitation of data access and analyses alongside absence of a research component in their formal roles require attention. The professional association should actively encourage collaborative academic-practitioner research and showcase new evidence for practice.