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In This Issue:  October 2010 Update your AHIMA Profile MHIMA Vision & Mission MHIMA Legal Resource Manual President's Message MHIMA Job Bank MHIMA Coding & Data Quality Tool Kits ICD-10 Trainer Opportunity Health Information & Technology Week MHIMA Fall Regional Meetings Save-the-Date MHIMA's Lunch & Learn Webinars Call for Volunteers Meaningful Use ONC's Certified HIT Product List RSS Call for Nominations MHIMA Scholarship FundWelcome to October 2010 Uplink Welcome to the October 2010 issue of our MHIMA member and corporate partner e-newsletter, Uplink. Remember, we are always looking for authors of articles of interest to our broad MHIMA membership: about 500 words, worth two (2) CE credits for your original work. Contact MHIMA Executive Director. Current and past issues of our e-newsletter are always available under the UPLINK E-NEWSLETTERS button on our MHIMA website. If you would like to unsubscribe to our newsletter, please contact Executive Director. MHIMA Vision & Mission
Mission: MHIMA is committed to the professional development of its members through education, networking, and life-long learning. These commitments promote high quality health information and benefit the public, health care providers, and other clinical data users. President's Message
First and foremost I would like to say, “Congratulations, Danika and Diane!!”
Then, Diane Larson was elected to the 2011 AHIMA Nominating Committee. Diane's nomination was approved by the MHIMA Board and this summer during HOD action, she was elected to the 2011 AHIMA Nominating Committee. As a Past President of MHIMA and an active, involved MHIMA member, Diane, with her friendly attitude and quick wit, has many friends and acquaintances in the HIM field. Be on the look out as you never know when she will call, wondering if you or someone you know would be interested in running for a position on the 2012 AHIMA Board. During the month of September, Myrna and I visited the Holiday Inn in St. Cloud in response to a Request for Proposal regarding the possibility of holding our 2014 Annual Meeting in St. Cloud. Although it was determined they could not accommodate our needs, please note that we continue to look at potential sites in outstate MN as well as the metro area for this possibility. If you have suggestions for locations for future meetings, please contact Myrna. The MHIMA Board meeting was held on September 17th at the Allina Commons. Our budget was approved, and discussions were held regarding many items, including the upcoming AHIMA House of Delegates and national meeting, upcoming webinars to be offered by MHIMA, legal manual updates, and MHIMA Annual meeting updates. While in Orlando, FL, prior to attending the AHIMA Annual convention, Steph Luthi-Terry and I attended Advocacy training.
#1. A Bylaw Amendment to change the AHIMA name to AHIIMA. This action item was brought forward to request changing AHIMA (American Health Information Management Association) to AHIIMA (American Health Informatics and Information Management Association). This motion was defeated. The name will not change. #2. House of Delegates Apportionment and Composition. This action item was brought forward to request changing the size of the House of Delegates from the current model with the number of delegates based on population of HIM professionals in the state to all states having two representatives (known as the Senate model). This item was amended to the “thirds” model with states broken down into three sections (Small, Medium, and Large). The amendment to change the action item to the thirds model did pass the House, but the final action item was defeated. The current House apportionment formula will stay the same.
If you would like to review additional information, please log onto the HOD State Leaders COP. This is a public COP and all members are welcome to join. I would like to remind everyone to check out the Calendar on the MHIMA website regarding upcoming regional meetings. Already this month, one has been held and there are four others scheduled within the State and two next month. This is a great achievement with all Regions having meetings this Fall. YEAH!! In addition, the MHIMA Nominating Committee will soon be meeting as they start building the ballot for next year. We have several positions to fill. If you are interested in running for a position or know someone who may be, please contact Steph Luthi-Terry. Finally, the rollercoaster. You crawl into the seat with anxious anticipation of what is to come. Your harness comes down, locking you into the seat and you cannot move. With the speed of light you shoot up a hill, your head thrown back against the seat, winding through dark tunnels with sharp, twisting turns, turning upside down, never knowing which way you will be going next, until you immerse into light, the brakes stop you, the harness goes up and you are free to go. You are exhilarated, it was scary, yet exciting, but disappointing as it was way too short. Let's do it again! In many ways, that ride resembles many of our careers in HIM, especially at this transformational time in health care. Let’s not be afraid of what lies ahead. Have a safe and Happy Halloween!
MHIMA Offering ICD-10 Certified Trainer Opportunity
This training is designed to help coding professionals become proficient in coding with ICD-10-CM/PCS coding systems while preparing them to train other coding professionals in these systems. The training involves completion of two on-line courses, which must be completed prior to attending three days of face-to-face training. Applicants must have three years of direct experience in assigning ICD-9-CM codes and at least one year of training experience or two semesters of teaching experience in an academic setting. This training must be completed no later than March 31, 2011. Completion of the Academy program allows the applicant to complete the assessment to receive AHIMA's Trainer Certificate, which will be required before reimbursement of the registration fee by MHIMA. The person selected for this funding will be expected to provide 15 hours of training opportunities for MHIMA members during 2011-2012. These include ICD-10 webinars, ICD-10 education at Regional meetings and ICD-10 education at the 2011 and 2012 MHIMA Annual Meetings. To be considered for this training opportunity for MHIMA, please contact Gina Sanvik, or phone Gina at 651-336-7117. Regional Fall Meetings Continue All of the MHIMA regions have held or have scheduled Fall meetings. These meetings are open to any MHIMA members living anywhere in Minnesota. For more information, visit the MHIMA website Calendar. Region D (East Central/St Cloud) held its Fall meeting on October 2nd. MHIMA's Lunch & Learn Webinars
The first two webinars available for purchase today are: Registration closes October 22, 2010. Additional webinars currently being planned: All webinars are $59 per connection for MHIMA/AHIMA members, and worth one (1) CE for everyone participating at one site connection. Attracting Students! Need Volunteers!
MHIMA needs to reach out to potential students, as health information careers still remain unfamiliar to many. One way to do this is to educate high school students about the different careers that can be pursued by becoming health information management professionals. We are looking for volunteers who would be willing to contact and speak at local high schools in your Region. We hope to have MHIMA members from each Region commit to reaching out to two high schools regarding health information careers. MHIMA will assist you by providing a tool kit, including a sample contact letter for high school guidance counselors, brochures and, in the event of the opportunity to speak at a high school in your area, a table skirt, a PowerPoint presentation and a list of Minnesota’s accredited schools. If you are interested in participating and representing our profession to students, please contact Chris Bushaw (phone 507-285-7237) or Joy Schmitt (phone 703-709-2357) and provide your name, the Region you are in, and a method to contact you. Meaningful Use of EHRs
Today, EHRs are common in most healthcare settings; however, many still cannot seamlessly share data with other healthcare providers. And there are many physicians, mostly in mid and small sized practices, that are not yet using an electronic record. There are numerous reasons for the lack of implementation or data sharing, with the most commonly cited barriers being inadequate capital for purchase or upgrades, concerns about maintenance costs, resistance on the part of physicians, and lack of staff with adequate expertise in information technology. While there has been bipartisan support of the adoption of EHRs for over half a decade, recent healthcare reform efforts have placed additional emphasis on the need for EHRs as a way to provide a more efficient exchange of health information. Last year, Congress and the Obama administration provided the health care community with a transformational opportunity to break through the barriers to progress. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) authorized incentive payments through Medicare and Medicaid to clinicians and hospitals when they use EHRs privately and securely to achieve specified improvements in care delivery. HITECH’s goal is not adoption alone but “meaningful use” of EHRs — that is, their use by providers to achieve significant improvements in care. The legislation ties payments specifically to the achievement of advances in health care processes and outcomes. The HITECH legislation further requires that meaningful use include electronic reporting of data on the quality of care. Incentive funds will be available through two programs—Medicare and Medicaid. Each has its own set of eligibility criteria, requirements, and incentive amounts. These voluntary incentive programs are designed to support providers during a Health IT transition period and instill the use of EHRs in meaningful ways to help our nation to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of patient health care. Eligible professionals must choose to accept payments under either the Medicare or Medicaid programs and cannot receive payments from both. For the Medicare incentives, eligible physicians in ambulatory practices that use a qualified electronic health records are eligible for up to $44K or more per physician over a five year period. As it is currently designed, the Federal incentive program will be introduced to the healthcare community in two phases, with a timeline that extends over the next five years. In Phase One, physicians have to meet 15 functionality core objectives and choose an additional five objectives from a menu of 10 options. Some of the requirements are fairly simple and some may requires significant investments in time and training to implement, including evaluation of EHR system components, system encryption and authorized access management. The New England Journal of Medicine has a great explanation of the phase one functionality objectives: http://healthpolicyandreform.nejm.org/?attachment_id=3742 To improve the quality and efficiency of care for the Medicare and Medicaid populations, providers will be also required to capture and report clinical quality measures. Physicians must report on three core clinical quality measures as well as three additional quality measures that they may choose from a list of 38. To demonstrate “meaningful use” in calendar year 2011, the Medicare incentive program will accept provider attestations for demonstration of all the meaningful use measures, including clinical quality measures. Starting in 2012, the Medicare incentive program will continue attestation for most of the meaningful use objectives but plans to initiate the electronic submission of clinical quality measures. For the Medicaid program, attestation will initially be used and then subsequent electronic submission of clinical quality measures will become mandatory to demonstrate meaningful use. Implementation of meaningful use criteria will be challenging for everyone, but the time has come to ensure the technology advances that other sectors of our economy undertook years ago become commonplace in healthcare. By linking higher payment to use of EHRs to meet quality measures, it’s expected that the adoption of health information technology at the community level will become widespread in the next five years. A CMS/ONC fact sheet on the rules is available at http://www.cms.gov/EHRIncentivePrograms/ Technical fact sheets on CMS’s final rule are available at http://www.cms.gov/EHRIncentivePrograms/ A technical fact sheet on ONC’s standards and certification criteria final rule is available at http://healthit.hhs.gov/standardsandcertification. editor's note: MHIMA will host a webinar on November 18th titled: "Meaningful Use: What's in it for HIM". Register Securely Online by Friday, November 12, 2010. ONC's Certified Health IT Product List The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has published the Certified Health IT Product List (CHPL), a comprehensive listing of Complete EHRs and EHR Modules that have been tested and certified under the Temporary Certification Program. Each Complete EHR and EHR Module included in the CHPL has been tested and certified by an ONC-Authorized Testing and Certification Body (ATCB), and reported to ONC by an ONC-ATCB, with reports validated by ONC. Only those EHR technologies appearing on the ONC-CHPL may be granted the reporting number that will be accepted by CMS for purposes of attestation under the EHR Incentive Programs. The listing will be updated as additional products are certified by ONC-ATCBs and reported to ONC for validation. For more information, please visit http://healthit.hhs.gov/CHPL. RSS - What is it? Do I want it?
As the pace of life grows more hectic for the HIM professional, getting out and getting the latest information on HIM topics and news seems like an overwhelming, if not impossible task. Stopping to surf the AHIMA or MHIMA website for the latest and greatest events, news and pertinent information is not a luxury that can be afforded often, and yet information is needed more than ever. How is a busy HIM professional to keep up? Enter RSS Feed technology. RSS, short for Real Simple Syndication is a type of server “push technology” which provides the ability for users who subscribe to a particular information “feed” to receive notification or updates when a site is updated or new information added. You may recognize the above “feed icon” from many sites that show the availability of the technology on their sites. Information usually comes in textual formats, but many sites are using audio and video (e.g. podcast-style) as well. Getting started is simple. First you will need to select a feed reader; there are thousands of feed readers available. Many (such as Google Reader or Feed Reader) are free, others (such as iTunes or Awasu) are proprietary and must be purchased. There are also readers that work exclusively on mobile devices, such as iPhone, Blackberry and many others, usually downloadable through the device homepage. Even email can also be selected as a feed reader for many sites. Once your reader of choice is downloaded to your location of choice, the world of information is at your fingertips, all without having to surf. To subscribe to an RSS feed, click on the universal feed icon (or other icon that indicates RSS or XML) at your favorite site and indicate the reader you wish the news or alerts to be pushed to, refresh your reader, and push technology goes to work for you, listing the latest updates from the sites you visit or want information from. Typically, most feeds provide a title and brief summary sentence: the option to proceed to the site to read more rests with you. Bottom line: RSS feeds make it possible for you to be aware of information as it is updated and pushed out by your favorite sites, and to review a large amount of online content in a very short time. In a profession where information is valued and sometimes critical, having it delivered to you makes keeping up a less daunting task. Call for Nominations for MHIMA 2011 Election The MHIMA Nominating Committee, chaired by Steph Luthi-Terry, Past President, is seeking nominations for the MHIMA election ballot for the following positions. All nominees must be active MHIMA members with an AHIMA-approved credential. The election occurs in March of 2011, and the elected positions begin on July 1, 2011. If you are interested, or if you want to recommend someone for consideration, please contact Steph Luthi-Terry. MHIMA Scholarship Fund Moves to AHIMA Foundation
Through this new agreement, the AHIMA Foundation will administer our designated fund dollars on behalf of MHIMA. MHIMA will continue to determine the MHIMA scholarship selection criteria, solicit and review the applications, and determine the scholarship winners. The AHIMA Foundation will issue the scholarship award checks from our MN Student Merit Scholarships fund held at the Foundation. MHIMA is very excited to offer this opportunity to everyone who is supportive of our MHIMA Scholarship program. For more information on how to make a contribution, contact Myrna Wells-Ulland |
There will not be another update to the Legal Manual until 2011. All HIM Departments should have this Manual in their office for ready reference. It's available on CD only and can be purchased from the MHIMA Store button on the MHIMA website.
AHIMA and CHIMA have designated November 7-13, 2010 as Health Information & Technology Week. This year's theme is "Ensuring Health Information Integrity." It's not too early to begin planning for how you will recognize your department and your staff in November. A Planning Kit was available in the August 2010 issue of AHIMA Advantage, and resources can also be found on the AHIMA web site. |
