|
Program Director's Greeting
Director’s Greeting Winter 2012 Ellen Cadwell, RHIA
Greetings to all our students, faculty, staff, and visitors. We are looking forward to Winter 2012 quarter as many changes and initiatives are on the horizon. As always, with Health Information, there are plenty of new rules, regulations and standards within the compliance and technology arena. But, our profession’s primary goal remains the same and that is to contribute to patient care by ensuring the quality of patient information. We help ensure that information is accurate, timely, pertinent and accessible.
In the big picture for 2012, there are multiple issues that will need to be addressed this year. Here are a few.
The first is the implementation of ICD-10-CM/PCS (International Classification of Diseases -10- Clinical Modification/Procedural Coding System). Facilities are doing full evaluations of their systems to prepare for this major change in reimbursement and reporting. The Shoreline Community College Health Informatics and Information Management program is rising to the challenge. Beginning this winter quarter, ICD-10 will be the focus of all our coding courses. Our future graduating students will be well prepared to help facilities transition into this monumental change.
HIIM professionals are awaiting the final rule for stage 2 of Meaningful Use. This is a federal program that defines and monitors the use of Electronic Health Records (HER) and related technology in health care facilities. The proposed rule will affect Health Information Management (HIM) departments in several areas. Since the Privacy and Security rules were instigated, filling requests for patient information needed to be completed within four weeks with one extension. Stage 2 will require that requests for health information be completed within 3 days and be in an electronic format. If the proposed Meaningful Use does include the new turnaround times for information requests providers will need to redesign how they do business. Physician documentation, transcription and billing will have to be almost in real-time to meet the requirements. HIM staff will be monitoring and working to meet these requirements.
Clinical documentation improvement is also increasing its importance in Health organizations. Not only is excellent documentation required for optimal reimbursement but it ties directly to patient care and reporting of quality measures to various organizations such as Medical/Medicaid, Leapfrog and Hospital Compare. This information is now available on websites, newspapers and even the evening news. This Winter quarter, the HIIM 220 Quality Improvement course is going to have a project using electronic records and clinical documentation improvement software.
As always, the rest of the 2011-2012 academic year promises to be a busy one for students, faculty and staff.
Happy New Year, Ellen
Ellen Cadwell ecadwell@shoreline.edu for ---- Last names ending in A-L.
Gloria Anderson ganderso@shoreline.edu ---- Last names ending in M-Z
|