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Leaders have the responsibility to develop leadership in their departmental members. Leadership capacity is needed so that health information professionals will be able to successfully respond to the constant changes in the healthcare environment. This article demonstrates how leadership can be modeled and developed through the redesign of jobs in departments of health information services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the health information management (HIM) profession continues to expand and become more specialized, there is an ever-increasing need to identify emerging HIM workforce roles that require a codified level of proficiency and professional standards. The Commission on Certification for Health Informatics and Information Management (CCHIIM) explored one such role-clinical documentation improvement (CDI) practitioner-to define the tasks and responsibilities of the job as well as the knowledge required to perform them effectively. Subject-matter experts (SMEs) defined the CDI specialty by following best practices for job analysis methodology. A random sample of 4,923 CDI-related professionals was surveyed regarding the tasks and knowledge required for the job. The survey data were used to create a weighted blueprint of the six major domains that make up the CDI practitioner role, which later formed the foundation for the clinical documentation improvement practitioner (CDIP) credential. As a result, healthcare organizations can be assured that their certified documentation improvement practitioners have demonstrated excellence in clinical care, treatment, coding guidelines, and reimbursement methodologies.

Tomorrow's HIM jobs are arriving today, as technology transforms how we capture, manage, and use information. Following are 11 jobs that represent evolving roles and emerging opportunities. Some are familiar roles with a new twist. Others are new roles, and some are possibilities. All are opportunities for HIM professionals to use their core competencies in new ways and move into positions that have not been thought of as career tracks for HIM.

It is no surprise that data quality managers are being recognized as knowledge leaders--they turn patient care data into valuable information for research, quality reviews, and planning. This article explores how this position is emerging in the HIM field and becoming a key player in quality care.

HIM professionals have long known the electronic health record (EHR) will change the collection, storage, and maintenance of health information, not to mention the delivery of care, but what about the its effects on the HIM department? While revolutionizing the HIM process, there can't help but be major changes in the job descriptions, leadership, and even the physical layout of the department. In this article, learn how the implementation of the EHR transformed two HIM departments--for the better.

Recently, a group of coders participated in a survey about their day-to-day experiences as remote, or at-home coders. The survey asked a series of questions related to the positives and negatives of coding at home versus coding in the more traditional office setting. Below is a summary of the survey findings.

The HIPAA-mandated privacy officer role offers a new opportunity for HIM professionals. What skills are required, and what needs to be done first? This article answers these questions.

From the early 20th century, HIM professionals have been part of the turbulent story of healthcare in America. How has the profession, and AHIMA, evolved along with the industry? The author describes the environmental changes that have shaped the profession.

HIM professionals are blazing a trail in managed care in many roles. This article samples the perspectives of five practitioners, offering a glimpse of their work, their backgrounds, and the skills and experiences that have helped them manage their careers.

How can HIM professionals step into the spotlight as facilities establish information security policies and procedures? At Hartford Hospital, HIM practitioners collaborated with other departments and formed a team that creatively implements and manages the security process.

Data from this study indicate that health information professionals are poised to take on greater responsibility in the design, evaluation, and application of information systems within healthcare. Whether or not health information management will move into these areas and begin to control future technological reengineering, however, remains unanswered from findings in this study. Future studies on healthcare administrator attitudes toward HIM professionals, curricular emphasis on information system design and analysis, and health information professionals in nonacute care settings are necessary to understand the direction of the HIM profession and its role in information systems.

Based on the findings of this study, HIM professionals' tasks or functions tend to vary across regions and in relation to levels of experience. As experience increased for RRAs, the task performed by them tended to be more management related. All other HIM professionals performed tasks that were more related to data collection than management. The most frequent title for the RRA (Director/manager/chief of medical records or HIM) was also more related to management activities while the title for the ART (Coder) was directly related to data collection. The majority of all HIM professionals work in acute care with approximately 3-8 percent working in long term care, ambulatory care, mental health care, and other healthcare settings such as software companies or health departments. The two most important predictors of salary across all regions were years of experience and educational level. When experience and education were controlled for, there was a slight salary advantage for males in the Midwest and West regions.