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HIIT 102 - Health Care Delivery System

Team HEDIS
Tierra Jackson
Roles/Involvement of HIM
Today, health information management involves more than just record keeping. The
industry has now shifted towards a focus on quality and safety. HEDIS was implemented as a
way to measure quality and safety of care provided by managed care plans. With the focus on
quality improvement, electronic record keeping is a vital step in the process. The entrance of the
electronic health record (EHR) and health information technology (HIT) into the HIM profession
has moved the profession forward at a rapid pace (Watzlaf, 2009, pg. 13). HIM professionals
must possess the newly required proficiencies to remain relevant in the expanding field.
According to the NCBI, the roles and involvement of HIM professionals will grow
beyond the traditional task-oriented roles and skills (Watzlaf, 2009, pg. 11). With the objective
to improve the quality of healthcare, an increased use of performance measures has been incited,
one of which includes HEDIS. With their skill sets, HIM professionals are ideal candidates to
lead patient safety and quality improvement initiatives while at the same time playing a pivotal
role in the information capturing process and system improvement measures (American, 2011,
pg. 19). HIM professionals have the ability to oversee documentation quality while working with
other health care professionals to ensure a completeness in the data and also that clinical
accuracy is maintained. These efforts will be the key to identifying system and process
problems within the realm of patient safety and quality of care (American, 2011, pg. 14).
HIM professionals are involved with more than just finding and obtaining information
for the purpose of performance measures. They possess an understanding of the data and are able
to consort with other professionals to also design new acceptable and reliable quality and patient

HIIT 102 - Health Care Delivery System


Team HEDIS
Tierra Jackson
safety measures. HIM professionals are exhibiting positive interpersonal skills to effectively
communicate with colleagues and individuals in other departments and disciplines (Spath,
2009, pg. 15). HIM professionals have the ability to draw significant conclusions from
meaningful information utilizing their critical thinking skills about healthcare performance.
They are answering meaningful quality questions by collecting, analyzing, and making sense of
performance data (Spath, 2009, pg. 15). By possessing these abilities they are also helping
organizations meet the obligatory quality requirements enforced by state and federal
regulations, accreditation standards, and health plan contractual obligations (Spath, 2009, pg.
15).

References

HIIT 102 - Health Care Delivery System


Team HEDIS
Tierra Jackson
American Health Information Management Association. (2011). HIM Functions in Healthcare
Quality and Patient Safety. Retrieved from http://library.ahima.org/xpedio/groups/
public/documents/ahima/bok1_049122.hcsp?dDocName=bok1_049122
Spath, P. L. (2009, September 16). Role of HIM Professionals in Quality Management.
Perspectives in Health Information Management/ AHIMA, American Health
Information Management Association, 6(Summer), 1j. Retrieved from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781733/
Watzlaf, V. J. ., Rudman, W. J., Hart-Hester, S., & Ren, P. (2009). The Progression of the Roles
and Functions of HIM Professionals: A Look into the Past, Present, and Future.
Perspectives in Health Information Management / AHIMA, American Health Information
Management Association, 6(Summer), 1i. Retrieved from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781732/

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