JAHIMA looks at growing informatics field
Meaningful Use, the quality reporting requirements of accountable care and the more robust data that will be generated by ICD-10 coding are all driving the growth of informatics.
An article in the May issue of the Journal of AHIMA covers the varying definitions of informatics and how health information management (HIM) professionals need to become more familiar with the field and develop their skills in data analytics.
“Informaticists have a wide variety of backgrounds and work experience but they all share a commitment to using data and systems processes to improve healthcare,” said American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon, MBA, RHIA, CAE, FACHE, FAHIMA. "As data continues to proliferate, it is incumbent upon health information management (HIM) professionals to become more familiar with informatics and develop their skills in data analytics.”
Anna Orlova, PhD, AHIMA’s senior director of standards, describes informatics as a modeling discipline or modeling tool because “it explains the themes of healthcare to the computer system, to the machine. And the computer is a model.” As a result, when computer systems are designed to capture information as well as they can, then providers can use the data to make better decisions.HIM professionals have been among those leading the way in trying to implement and develop interoperable systems, this area is also increasingly becoming a focus for informaticists.
David Marc, MBS, CHDA, the health informatics graduate program director and assistant professor of HIM and informatics at the College of St. Scholastica, said in the article that the line between HIM and health IT continues to blur. “A greater education around health informatics is really required, and you’re seeing that through AHIMA’s career mapping.”
Read the article.
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.