In the June print issue Robert James Campbell writes on applying lean thinking techniques to healthcare. The process improvement technique can be used to identify and eliminate waste in any activity. Campbell, an assistant professor at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC, teaches the lean thinking technique to health services and health information students. Here he shares one project in which students reengineer a patient transfer process using lean thinking.

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As healthcare expenses continue to erode household, government, and provider budgets, the industry needs better methods to reduce the cost of care. One tool that can increase efficiency and value is a change management technique called lean thinking.

Lean thinking is based on the Toyota Production Model and is built upon five steps to identify and eliminate waste: value, value stream, flow, pull, and perfection. The ultimate goal of lean thinking as applied to healthcare is to provide services and products that add value to the patient by improving care in the most efficient manner possible. (more…)

ONC published a draft description of the health IT extension program in today’s Federal Register, requesting comments within two weeks—by June 11.

The extension program is called for under the HITECH Act in ARRA, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It authorizes creation of a National Health Information Technology Research Center and affiliated regional extension centers to assist providers in selecting and implementing certified electronic health records.

The program also will assist providers in becoming “meaningful users” of the systems, a prerequisite to receiving bonus Medicare and Medicaid payments under a separate ARRA provision.

The extension program is to give preference to providers serving uninsured, underinsured, underserved, and special-needs populations. (more…)

Professional practice experience is an important part of an HIM student’s education. Hands-on experience with HIM work is important to helping graduates enter the work force prepared. Each CAHIIM-accredited HIM program must have at least one PPE, which helps students assimilate the HIM theory taught in class with real-world HIM applications.

Both students and sponsoring facilities new to PPEs might not know what to expect. To help them properly prepare and get the most out of their site visits, the AHIMA House of Delegates Team on HIM Higher Education and Workforce has created the Clinical Practice Sites/Professional Practice Experience Guide.

The 25-page guide provides information and best practices on serving as a clinical PPE site as well as advice to PPE students looking to get their first glimpse at HIM work. It offers tips on how to make the most of the program. The guide can be used by site managers, HIM department mentors, academic programs, and students.

The guide is divided into chapters addressing each participant in a PPE experience. The student section, for example, outlines the expectations of a PPE student. The affiliation site guide chapter lays out what is expected of the organization and helps prospective sites develop their PPE programs.

The ICD-10-CM/PCS final rule requires a major transition in academic programs as well as in the field. Institutions currently teaching ICD-9-CM in baccalaureate, associate, and certificate programs must transition their curricula to ICD-10-CM/PCS in coordination with the industry’s transition to the new coding systems. Educators will be among the first in the country who need to learn ICD-10-CM/PCS.

The April practice brief “Transitioning to ICD-10-CM/PCS—An Academic Timeline” outlines how and when HIM academic programs should begin integrating ICD-10-CM/PCS education into their curriculum. The article lays out the academic transition into three phases: preparation, hybrid, and full implementation. The countdown to integrating ICD-10-CM/PCS begins on August 1, 2010, when educators should start expanding curriculum content on courses affected by ICD-10-CM/PCS changes. (more…)

The stimulus bill includes provisions for education, outreach, and training around healthcare IT. Bonnie S. Cassidy, MPA, RHIA, FAHIMA, FHIMSS, offers a look at the significant career development and employment opportunities this offers HIM professionals. Cassidy is a strategic leader for the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology and a past-director of the AHIMA Board of Directors.

Title XIII of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA, includes $19.2 billion in provisions for healthcare information technology and information management. Much of the money is dedicated to health IT adoption, but a significant amount goes toward training, education, and knowledge-sharing.

This article focuses on the education, outreach, and training opportunities that reside within the section “Incentives for the Use of Health Information Technology.” The provisions recognize that the successful adoption, implementation, and use of health IT require a newly trained work force. (more…)

A 19-year-old college student uses her university clinic for gynecological visits. Her parents contact the clinic and ask to see her health record in order to find out if she is using birth control. The clinic shares the record with the parents. Did the clinic staff do wrong?

Maybe not.

The behavior would seem to fly in the face of the HIPAA privacy rule, but virtually all public schools and most private and public postsecondary institutions are covered by a different federal law.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, regulates the privacy of students’ education records. These can include student health records if the institution chooses to classify them as such. The HIPAA privacy rule does not apply to records covered by FERPA.

It’s a complicated intersection of federal law, and the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education have issued guidance to help schools navigate it. See “When FERPA and HIPAA Collide” in the Winter 2009 issue of AHIMA’s Academic Advisor e-newsletter.

In a September feature, writer Gina Rollins talks with several HIM professionals who sought master’s level educations to better manage the development and widespread adoption of health IT and digital information.

She writes, “With EHRs has come the need to better understand and explain how data are defined, analyzed, and interpreted. That includes everything from knowing the ins-and-outs of relational databases, grasping the evolving definitions of the legal medical record, and creating the ability to reproduce data consistently. There also is a burgeoning body of standards, vocabularies and terminologies, and the human factor of managing the transition from paper to electronic media.” (more…)