AHIMA CEO: Information governance essential

A robust information governance strategy is essential to ensure the success of ehealth initiatives, American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon, MBA, said in remarks at the association's eHealth Initiative Annual Conference in Orlando, Fla.

Information governance—an accountability framework containing policies, standards and structure to ensure the integrity of health information—are critical to initiatives like ICD-10, EHR adoption and Meaningful Use, she said.

“When we can trust that the health information gleaned from clinical and business data collected has integrity, we can take that intelligence and turn it into knowledge. This is not only essential to surviving in this new environment, but has the potential to revolutionize the way care is delivered,” Thomas Gordon said, according to the association.

Healthcare organizations must realize that information and data governance are foundational, and that analytics are essential to better population health management, she also said.

Clinical documentation improvement programs are important to “identify deficiencies in clinical documentation and develop methods to ensure the complete and accurate capture of a patient’s clinical encounter,” she also said.