Background: Professional practice placements (work-integrated learning (WIL)) enable practical application of essential knowledge and skills, from the health information management university curricula, aligned to profession entry-level competencies. Objectives: To (1) identify formal (explicit learning outcomes (ELOs)) and informal (derived learning outcomes (DLOs)) articulated in final-year, health information management WIL proposals, 2012–2021, at Australia’s La Trobe University; and (2) map these to the contemporaneous, national Health Information Manager (HIM) profession entry-level competency (sub-)domains. Method: A random sample (20%; n = 129) of 2012–2021 final-year placement proposals was interrogated using documentary analysis. ELOs and DLOs were extracted and categorised to the (sub-)domains of the Health Information Management Association of Australia’s (2017) HIM Professional Competency Standards; between-group comparisons were made. Results: Of the 129 proposals: 38 (29.5%) were absent ELOs; one had no project description; almost 74% were project-related. Predominant sub-domains in Domain A, “Generic professional skills”: communication (in 63.7% of ELOs; 61.2% of DLOs); teamwork (40.7% ELOs; 50.8% DLOs). Predominant sub-domains in the eight profession-specific competency domains: “Health information services organisation and management” (Domain I; 60.5% ELOs; 100% DLOs); “Health information and records management” (Domain B; 54.9% ELOs; 56.3% DLOs); “Research methods” (Domain E; 45.1% ELOs; 44.5% DLOs). ELOs were most commonly aligned to four discipline-specific domains; DLOs were distributed across five. Conclusion: Analysis of the knowledge-skills learning outcomes for final-year, student-HIM placements has generated recommendations to support agency supervisors in framing WIL project proposals. Implications for health information management practice: This research will support more robust WIL to complement student HIMs’ academic education for competent, postgraduation practice. © The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
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