Three key factors influencing HIMAA membership - Geographical location, country of birth and qualification

Introduction: The current workforce in health information is changing due to advances in eHealth and funding models. A Health Information Workforce Census conducted in 2018 investigated the current HIM workforce. However, minimal research has been performed in exploring factors that influence membership of Health Information Management Association Australia (HIMAA). Objective: The aim of this paper is to examine the current workforce of Health Information Managers (HIMs) and Clinical Coders (CCs) and determine the factors that influence persons to join HIMAA. Method: This paper examined data items from the 2018 census provided by the data custodian. The total number of respondents was 641 and the analysis was performed using a statistical analysis software system (IBM SPSS Statistics Version 25) for data manipulation and analysis. Descriptive analyses were applied with means and standard deviations for continuous variables and counts and percentages for categorical variables. Chi-square test was used to determine the association between categorical variables, while two sample T-test was used to examine the relationship between continuous and categorical variables. Results: Of the 641 respondents; 67.4% identified as HIMs and 32.6% as CCs. Of the five variables of interest (age, gender, country of birth, state and highest qualification), only two were significantly associated with professional membership, namely state of residence (p=0.025) and highest qualification (p=0.016). Further analysis revealed an interaction between country of birth and highest qualification in HIMAA members (p<0.001).