Health Information Technology Leader Comes to THIMA!
The THIMA Board of Directors is
elated to welcome Dr. John Glaser as the keynote speaker
for the 2009 THIMA Annual Meeting. Dr.
Glaser is a
well-known and highly regarded leader in health
information technology (HIT). He was the
founding Chairman of College of Healthcare Information
Management Executives (CHIME) and is past President of
the Healthcare Information and Management Systems
Society (HIMSS). Dr. Glaser is Vice-President and Chief
Information Officer, Partners HealthCare System, Inc.
Partners HealthCare has received several industry awards
for its effective and innovative use of information
technology.
Dr. Glaser will discuss how HIM and
HIT professionals can work together to become leaders in
improving patient care. He has a great appreciation for
our profession and the expertise we ‘bring to the
table’.
Please invite your HIT and CIO
colleagues to attend at least the first day of the 2009
THIMA Annual Meeting to hear Dr. Glaser’s presentation.
For more information about the
Annual Meeting, go to
http://www.thima.org/AnnualMeetingHome.htm
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RACs Are Back On
the Road!
The contract bid protests that
temporarily halted the RAC program have been resolved
and RACs are back in business!
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/rac/ THIMA
and THA are offering three RACs workshops to help YOU
get ready for these audits – Click here for more
information:
http://www.thima.org/calendar.htm
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Health Information Management
Department Affected by New Privacy Changes
Included in the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act (ARRA or PL 111-5) – the economic
stimulus legislation - are updated privacy / security
requirements.
The areas that are affected include
breach of health information, accounting disclosures,
and marketing functions. It is vital that Health
Information Management directors and privacy officers
become fully knowledgeable about the new regulations.
Other imperative issues with the
new requirements include complying with patient rights,
data concerning claims, and patient accounting. Each
organization must come up with a plan and process to
ensure that all new requirements have been met and that
their staffs are fully trained on all of the new
requirements.
AHIMA is offering a webinar on
March 12, to review the changes. Go to
https://imis.ahima.org/orders/productDetail.cfm?pc=AUDMC031209&bURL=%2Forders%2FproductByType%2Ecfm%3Ft%3D1
for more information.
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Do Something Nice for Someone!
We
all have friends and mentors who have guided us along
the way. Take a moment to honor someone who has made a
difference in your life. Nominate someone for a THIMA
Award
http://www.thima.org/aboutus_awards.htm.
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News Bites
AHIMA Kicks Off Congressional Education Campaign
After an
action-packed beginning to the 111th Congress
with the passage of the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act, AHIMA is kicking off a new education
campaign. This week, AHIMA’s Policy and Government
Relations office sent an introductory letter to all
members of the US House of Representatives and the US
Senate. In addition, AHIMA’s component state
associations were supplied with draft letters to forward
to each of their state’s congressional delegations and a
general letter is available on the
AHIMA Advocacy Assistant for AHIMA members to send
to their own members of Congress and Senators. These
letters are in an editable format so that you can
personalize them to make them more applicable to your
own environment and situations. If you have any
questions about this introductory campaign, contact
AHIMA’s Director of Government Relations, Don Asmonga at
Don.Asmonga@ahima.org.
HHS Announces Healthcare-Associated Infections Action
Plan
A Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) steering committee for the prevention of
healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) was established
in July 2008. Charged with developing a national
strategy to reduce HAIs, the steering committee
developed the
HHS Action Plan to Prevent Healthcare-Associated
Infections. The American Hospital Association (AHA)
submitted comments to HHS in response to the action plan
urging the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to
include two infection-reporting measures in its
pay-for-reporting program—infection rates for surgical
site infections and central line catheter-associated
blood stream infections. AHA recommended that the
department limit its targets and metrics to goals and
objectives adopted by the
National Priorities Partnership, a public-private
partnership dedicated to quality improvement and
measurement, convened by the National Quality Forum. AHA
also urged HHS to develop a common data platform based
on hospital compare for its hospital data reporting
programs to “eliminate reporting redundancy and ensure
that data element definitions and formats are
standardized.”
Visit here to access AHA’s comments.
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Local
HIMA News
Mamel McCain Leadership Academy
Presentation/Luncheon was held on Friday, February 6, 2009
at the University of Tennessee. Amanda King, RHIA was
chosen as the 2008 Mamel McCain Leadership Academy
recipient. Amanda presented at the 2008 Fall Update and
gave a separate presentation to the students regarding the
benefits of volunteering with the national, state, and local
associations. MHIMA provided lunch and the students had an
opportunity to talk with the MHIMA board members and
Amanda.
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Lunch & Learn
THA and THIMA are cosponsoring a series of CPT
webinars.
Click here to register. Registration is being
handled through THA.
