After solidifying the AHDI/MTIA partnership in May 2007, both groups came together on Capitol Hill to expose lawmakers to the important contribution documentation specialists and the clinical documentation sector plays in patient care delivery. There were over 100 Hill visits made by nearly 70 AHDI and MTIA members – not bad for a first attempt through the partnership. It was exciting to watch practitioners and business owners join together to advocate on issues related to workforce development, privacy and security issues, and document creation needs in the health information production chain. The practitioners and business owners who participated in the Advocacy Summit recognized there were more similarities to their issues than differences.
The debriefing reception on Thursday evening, sponsored by 3M Corporation, gave attendees an opportunity to share stories and alert leadership to the issues raised on Capitol Hill. Betty Honkonen, AHDI President, and Dave Woodrow, MTIA Legislative Committee Chair, presided over the briefing. Many first timers stood up and presented on their experiences and conversations with legislative aides and Congressional members. Veteran participants talked about how it was easier this go round and how much more receptive and familiar policy makers were with our issues. Some attendees even had the opportunity to participate in constituent coffees or in district meetings learning about other issues concerning the public.
As far as follow-up, aside from the letters hand-carried to Congressional offices from members who couldn’t attend, many participants distributed my business card since I live and work in Washington DC now. Plans are underway to build a stronger coalition to get the Allied Health Reinvestment Act passed, a legislative amendment to Title IV funding to include recognition of AHDI approved schools, and the development of a compliance outreach program for the transcription sector. The Compliance Program will focus on providing ethical best business practices to business owners and transcriptionists. This will include transparency of where work is performed, billing methods, appropriate handling of protected health information, employment of independent contractors versus employees, and minimum wage laws.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
BUILDING STRATEGIC ALLIANCES THROUGH KEY MEETINGS AT HIMSS 2008
Through the AHDI/MTIA partnership, we held several successful meetings during the 2008 HIMSS convention. Please read more about these meetings below.
AHIMA
Our first meeting was with AHIMA with focus was on several AHDI/MTIA partnership deliverables. AHIMA mentioned progress on the TROTTS white paper moving along, we talked about the ASRT evaluation guide, and the soon to be ready QA best practices for AHIMA endorsement. Given the similar challenges facing the coding community – move to home-based practice and emerging coding assistant technology – AHIMA is expecting similar commoditization challenges that transcription has already experienced. We briefly reviewed the next gen recruitment campaign we launched on both MTIA and AHDI websites and mentioned the DOD was interested in expanding military spouse career outreach to the coding community.
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
A meeting of key individuals serving on the Workforce Development Committee met to discuss priorities for workforce development – a high priority for the partnership. It was agreed that focus needs to be on the following:
• outreach and relationship building with DOL Career One-Stop Centers and their career counselors in promoting medical transcription careers to the unemployed
• promoting medical transcription to the military installations in the eight states receiving Career Advancement Account awards
• customizing the registered apprenticeship program with transcription companies that already have internship/mentoring programs already in place.
SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES KEYNOTE
We attended one of the HIMSS keynotes, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Levitt. Several initiatives mentioned by the Secretary directly related to our sector. Concerns over privacy and security of health information and ways to better protect health information, patient safety – especially as it relates to medical error rates and the need for standardization in health IT. The Secretary mentioned that 75% of all EMRs have been certified by the Certification Commission for Health Information (CCHIT). Secretary Levitt discussed the establishment of chartered value exchanges – using data to inform standards and incorporating nationally established standards from CCHIT and Health Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) into these chartered value exchanges. The first round of exchanges has already been funded.
HIMSS
Our meeting with HIMSS was postponed due to scheduling conflicts. In follow-up to reschedule the meeting, we mentioned the following items to include in the discussion:
• develop a clinical documentation workshop series for HIMSS 2009
• build a relationship with Electronic Health Record Vendors Association (EHRVA)
• promote CDA4CDT through Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE)
CDA4CDT Networking Breakfast
We had 30 participants attend the CDA4CDT networking breakfast representing HL7, AHIMA, AHDI/MTIA, EHR, documentation technology, and medical transcription companies. Liora Alschuler, project director, provided an overview of the project and participants discussed ways to promote widespread adoption of CDA4CDT. It was suggested that we need to make and business and marketing case for greater adoption and an effective way to do this would be to create a connect-a-thon possibly during the AHIMA convention. We could showcase providers already implementing CDA document types into practice and discuss benefits to patient safety, cost, and delivery system effectiveness. We held a meeting afterwards with HL7 to discuss a memorandum of understanding between HL7 and CDA4CDT to ensure greater participation and promotion of these documentation standards.
KLAS
We had a meeting with KLAS during HIMSS to discuss how the organizations could work closer together for mutual benefit. KLAS has a need for greater MTSO participation in their market surveys and MTSOs could learn from the market intelligence provided by KLAS research. We have invited KLAS to present a workshop at the MTIA annual conference to disseminate information about their market research and to provide them an opportunity to learn more about what the projects MTIA is engaged in and to learn more about this sector for annual conference participants.
AHIMA
Our first meeting was with AHIMA with focus was on several AHDI/MTIA partnership deliverables. AHIMA mentioned progress on the TROTTS white paper moving along, we talked about the ASRT evaluation guide, and the soon to be ready QA best practices for AHIMA endorsement. Given the similar challenges facing the coding community – move to home-based practice and emerging coding assistant technology – AHIMA is expecting similar commoditization challenges that transcription has already experienced. We briefly reviewed the next gen recruitment campaign we launched on both MTIA and AHDI websites and mentioned the DOD was interested in expanding military spouse career outreach to the coding community.
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
A meeting of key individuals serving on the Workforce Development Committee met to discuss priorities for workforce development – a high priority for the partnership. It was agreed that focus needs to be on the following:
• outreach and relationship building with DOL Career One-Stop Centers and their career counselors in promoting medical transcription careers to the unemployed
• promoting medical transcription to the military installations in the eight states receiving Career Advancement Account awards
• customizing the registered apprenticeship program with transcription companies that already have internship/mentoring programs already in place.
SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES KEYNOTE
We attended one of the HIMSS keynotes, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Levitt. Several initiatives mentioned by the Secretary directly related to our sector. Concerns over privacy and security of health information and ways to better protect health information, patient safety – especially as it relates to medical error rates and the need for standardization in health IT. The Secretary mentioned that 75% of all EMRs have been certified by the Certification Commission for Health Information (CCHIT). Secretary Levitt discussed the establishment of chartered value exchanges – using data to inform standards and incorporating nationally established standards from CCHIT and Health Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) into these chartered value exchanges. The first round of exchanges has already been funded.
HIMSS
Our meeting with HIMSS was postponed due to scheduling conflicts. In follow-up to reschedule the meeting, we mentioned the following items to include in the discussion:
• develop a clinical documentation workshop series for HIMSS 2009
• build a relationship with Electronic Health Record Vendors Association (EHRVA)
• promote CDA4CDT through Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE)
CDA4CDT Networking Breakfast
We had 30 participants attend the CDA4CDT networking breakfast representing HL7, AHIMA, AHDI/MTIA, EHR, documentation technology, and medical transcription companies. Liora Alschuler, project director, provided an overview of the project and participants discussed ways to promote widespread adoption of CDA4CDT. It was suggested that we need to make and business and marketing case for greater adoption and an effective way to do this would be to create a connect-a-thon possibly during the AHIMA convention. We could showcase providers already implementing CDA document types into practice and discuss benefits to patient safety, cost, and delivery system effectiveness. We held a meeting afterwards with HL7 to discuss a memorandum of understanding between HL7 and CDA4CDT to ensure greater participation and promotion of these documentation standards.
KLAS
We had a meeting with KLAS during HIMSS to discuss how the organizations could work closer together for mutual benefit. KLAS has a need for greater MTSO participation in their market surveys and MTSOs could learn from the market intelligence provided by KLAS research. We have invited KLAS to present a workshop at the MTIA annual conference to disseminate information about their market research and to provide them an opportunity to learn more about what the projects MTIA is engaged in and to learn more about this sector for annual conference participants.
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