06/08/2012

I am sure many Health Information Management (HIM) practitioners in the U.S. and HIM practitioners from the U.S. who are following this blog already know about an innovative tool for charting their promotional pathways. I had kept away this article after reading a news feed about it a few days ago, and wanted to toy around with this interactive tool before I could blog about it today.

In the U.S., the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects employment in the medical record and Health information Management (HIM) field to increase 21 percent by 2020.

With this expected growing demand for qualified HIM professionals high and for both HIM students and professionals seeking to chart their career course in the rapidly changing field of HIM, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) representing more than 64,000 specially educated Health Information Management professionals in the United States and around the world has unveiled Health Information Management (HIM) Career Map^©.

This HIM Career Map^© is a one-stop place to learn about HIM careers, where the field is now and where it is heading. Claimed as the first career map of its kind in the healthcare profession, it was made possible by working in a partnership between the AHIMA Foundation and the Center for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) and in part by philanthropic contributions from Career Step – “a leading online school with almost 20 years of experience providing career education specifically designed to help students gain the knowledge and skills needed to quickly transition to a successful career after graduation.” (Career Step 2012).

The HIM Career Map^© is an interactive and visual representation of 53 current HIM job titles and roles that compose the scope of the field and 14 emerging roles in HIM arranged in a grid with six broad job families on the top row and four skill levels on the left side of the grid.

Any white dot in any square of the grid represents each HIM job title while a yellow diamond in any square of the grid represents an emerging HIM job title. Clicking on a white dot displays a rounded rectangle box pointing to the chosen HIM job title white dot. This box shows a description and details on the skills required, job responsibilities, education and work experience needed for success, and promotional pathways. More detailed description on this HIM job title can be viewed by clicking on the yellow box labeled ‘FULL DESCRIPTION’ at the bottom of the rounded rectangle box. Simultaneously, line(s) radiate from this white dot to other white dots or yellow diamonds representing promotional HIM job title(s) in neihbouring squares of the grid .

The following screenshots show three (3) views of this map. A larger view of each screen shot opens in a new tab of your current browser window.

introduction screen

Grid showing skill levels on the left, broad job families on top row,white dots for existing HIM titles and yellow diamonds for emerging HIM titles

HIM job title box and radiating lines to adjacent HIM job titles

The HIM Career Map^© also indicates alternate titles for some positions due to the different terminology used in the industry. The map is driven by data from AHIMA subject matter experts, staff and an AHIMA member survey.

For full details of the HIM Career Map^©, visit http://hicareers.com/CareerMap/ (this link will open in a new tab of your current window).

AHIMA hopes that the map will help students, recent graduates and HIM professionals looking for new opportunities to plan a path to success through the promotional and transitional career paths associated with them.

AHIMA plans to add emerging roles to the map as needed to reflect the current reality of HIM roles, pathways between the roles and connections to the direction in which the profession is moving.

I think this tool is simple yet a clever plan to graphically display HIM job titles and career pathways in a grid, and qualifies as a one-stop quick resource center and reference portal to check on HIM opportunities in the U.S.

References:
Career Step, viewed 5 July 2012 <http://www.careerstep.com/about-us>

Health Information Careers – Career Mapping, viewed 5 July 2012 <http://hicareers.com/CareerMap/>

A Health Information Management (HIM) / Medical Records (MR) practitioner will find a series of diagnostic tests or diagnostic procedures – terms used interchangeably, incorporated into the medical record of a patient.

Diagnostic tests or procedures are necessary to formulate a medical diagnosis and the course of treatment based on a patient’s history and presenting symptoms. Diagnostic tests or procedures are also performed to determine abnormalities or disorders of various body systems to identify and to prioritise the treatments and procedures during periodic reassessment and evaluation of the patient’s expected outcomes.

In the post Plan Of Care (this link will open in a new tab of your current window) about individualised care plans, you can read to know about a patient’s care plan which is always related to his or her identified needs. But those needs may change as the result of clinical improvement or new information from a routine reassessment, for example from diagnostic tests such as abnormal laboratory or radiography results.

As diagnostic tests or procedures are expensive, they are prescribed usually selectively by the prescribing practitioner, who is either the doctor in most instances or other authorised prescribing practitioners like advanced practice registered nurses who are authorised to order and perform certain diagnostic tests.

Diagnostic tests or procedures are either noninvasive or invasive. Noninvasive means the body is not entered with any type of instrument. The skin and other body tissues, organs, and cavities remain intact. Invasive means accessing the body’s tissue, organ, or cavity through some type of instrumentation procedure.

If you are working as a HIM/MR practitioner in a Joint Commission International (JCI) accredited hospital or a hospital seeking JCI accredited status or infact at any hospital, the medical records show documentation evidence of doctors who had found an abnormality and had prescribed diagnostic tests or procedures to evaluate findings more closely. The JCI Standard COP.2.3 requires that such evidence be demonstrated in the patient’s medical record.

As the JCI Standard COP.2.3 intent statement specifically lists endoscopy and cardiac catheterisation diagnostic procedures, I shall provide some brief details on these diagnostic precudures.

Endoscopy is an invasive diagnostic technique using specialised instruments called endoscopes such as the sigmoidoscope, colonoscope, gastroscope, bronchoscope, and laryngoscope, for visual observation of internal organs through the intestinal tract. However, no incisions are made for routine endoscopy procedures.

A team of doctors, nurses, and technicians perform a cardiac catheterisation procedure, which takes from 1 to 3 hours to obtain information about congenital or acquired heart defects, measure oxygen concentration, determine cardiac output, or assess the status of the heart’s structures and chambers. Therapeutic treatments may be done during the catheterisation to repair the heart, open valves, or dilate arteries.

Whatever the reason for diagnostic tests or procedures, diagnostic tests or procedures performed and the diagnostic findings (results) are always incorporated into the patient’s medical record. Such documentation on the appropriate forms will indicate details like the identity of the prescribing practitioner and his or her reason for performing the diagnostic and other procedures, if he or she had administered any anesthesia, dye, or other medications, type of specimen obtained and where it was delivered, vital signs and other assessment data such as patient’s tolerance of the procedure or pain and discomfort level as well as any symptoms of complications, patient or family teaching and demonstrated level of understanding and written instructions given to the patient or family members about the diagnostic and other procedures.

A HIM/MR practitioner must will be able to differentiate between diagnostic and other procedures performed and the location of their diagnostic findings(results) from that for surgical procedures, a written surgical report or a brief operative note that can be found in the patient’s medical record.

References:
Caroline, BR & Mary, TK 2012, Textbook of basic nursing, 10th edn, Wolters Kluwer Health, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia, USA

Joint Commission International 2010, Joint Commission International Accreditation Standards For Hospitals, 4th edn, JCI, USA

Michelle AG & Mary JB 2011, Essentials of Health Information Management: Principles and Practices, 2nd edn, Delmar, Cengage Learning, NY, USA

Sue, CD & Patricia, KL 2011, Fundamentals of Nursing: Standards & Practice, 4th edn, Delmar, Cengage Learning, NY, USA