This tongue-in-cheek essay hopes to prompt discussion among health information management (HIM) professionals of all levels with regard to the fast-changing HIM landscape, particularly the electronic health record (EHR) and the financial and career options that healthcare systems and employees have had to accept, adapt to, and decipher.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, signed into law on March 30, 2010, are considered to constitute the most extensive changes to the U.S. healthcare system since the passage of Medicare in 1965.
Leadership is one of the most examined human behavioral phenomena. While leadership appears easy to see, it remains difficult to define. Despite the abundance of leadership theories and widely known experts, there are no generally accepted definitions of leadership. The challenge of redefining health information management (HIM) leadership is compounded by the ongoing changes in HIM and the critical state of healthcare in the United States.
The health information management (HIM) professional is strategically placed to manage information within the public health arena. As managers of information flow, HIM professionals utilize increasing levels of technology to link clinical settings, public health departments, research institutions, and consumers with health information.
Several studies have analyzed the roles and functions of health information management (HIM) professionals. Prior studies have focused on practitioners’ daily routines across the HIM workforce, from those working for large direct-care providers and small rural physician offices, to consultants and industry sales professionals, to administrators and educators.
Health information technology (HIT) is being sought as one of the key elements to streamline the process of providing healthcare to improve quality and harness cost. It is hoped that HIT will lead to a more cost-efficient healthcare system than the current one. Surprisingly, there is no agreed definition of HIT in academic literature or government documentation.
The protection of individuals’ sacred medical stories and a commitment to “safeguard[ing] the confidentiality of medical records” have long been fundamental roles of the health information management (HIM) professional, inherent in the HIM profession throughout its 80-year history.
The demand for healthcare data and information has grown exponentially with increased efforts to improve quality of care, decrease healthcare costs, and implement more efficient and productive means of conducting medical research.
In this article we introduce blogs, including their brief history, their current status, and motivations for blogging. We describe how we created a course blog in one online Health information management (HIM) baccalaureate course. We describe three pedagogical purposes (online discussion, digital drop box, and class project management tool) of the course blog.
Over the last decade, enrollments in health information technology and health information administration programs have spiraled downward resulting in the closure of programs. Reversing this trend is imperative for the survival of the health information management profession.
