HIMSS, AHIMA and IHE have banded together to produce a report that's meant to serve as a guide for those working on developing interoperability standards.
"Health IT Standards for Health Information Management Practices" informs HIT standards developers about HIM practices and outlines how to align HIM practices with the capabilities of HIT products through standards application in technology.
In addition, the white paper unveils a roadmap for the development of standards to support information governance (IG) in healthcare, including national and international efforts to ensure semantic, technical and functional interoperability among health information systems. Developed by the subject matter experts from an AHIMA HIM Practice Task Force in collaboration with HIT vendors, the draft white paper received about 150 comments during a public comment period in June/July from the HIM community and HIT professionals whose input was incorporated into the final paper.
AHIMA, HIMSS and IHE International developed the white paper as part of AHIMA’s globally focused IG initiative. For the first time, HIT vendors and HIM professionals have worked together to ensure that interoperability will be addressed from an HIM perspective. Together, HIM and HIT professionals are promoting the use of standards to achieve functional interoperability and effective use of health information systems, including EHRs.
“To achieve interoperability, HIM and HIT professionals must each share their perspectives and determine how to bring the pieces together into a cohesive program that allows information to be used effectively throughout its lifecycle,” said AHIMA CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon, MBA, RHIA, CAE, FACHE, FAHIMA.”
The collaboration "allowed us to share valuable knowledge on standards development and health information exchange as we developed this white paper,” said Mari Greenberger, MPPA, director, informatics, HIMSS North America. “Building on our current efforts in defining and developing use cases for secure exchange of health data, HIMSS recognizes the importance of and need for this ongoing alignment to provide information that is useful and drive meaningful outcomes to the healthcare community.”
Read the complete white paper.
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.