CAHIIM View, Spring 2010

Spring 2010

Volume 5, Issue 2

Events

July
24–28, Faculty Development Institute and AOE, New Orleans, LA
25, CAHIIM at AOE (1–4 p.m.)
27, CAHIIM Update—AOE General Session

CAHIIM Exhibits at:
September 25–30, AHIMA Convention, Orlando, FL

November 13–17, AMIA Annual Symposium, Washington, DC

November 15–19, IFHRO International Conference, Milan, Italy

In This Issue

Message from the CAHIIM Chair

CCHIIM Changes HIM Certification Exmination Outcome Reports

Teaching ICD-10: A Different Look at Code Set Structure

Agenda Topics for CAHIIM Day at AOE

The CAHIIM Accredited Program Seal

CAHIIM Participates in Canadian LOHIM Project

16th Congress of the International Federation of Health Records Organization

APAR Annual Report and New Data Updates

Compiling a Successful Progress Report

Welcome New Panel of Accreditation Reviewers

Call for Panel of Accreditation Reviewers

Board of Commissioners Awards Accreditation

Message from the CAHIIM Chair

By Angela Kennedy, MEd, RHIA, CPHQ, CAHIIM Chair

The first signs of summer are here. The flowers are in bloom, and the warm weather has arrived. For academic programs, it means another close to the academic year. Our APARs have been submitted and programs are planning for the future.

While many of you will enjoy summer vacations, academic administrators will be diligently planning for the new year. Summer is not only a great time to gather materials and your thoughts for strategic planning, but it is also a great time for learning, networking, and recruitment. Faculty and administrators can use this time to visit practicum sites. Submerse yourself in a new learning experience. Try a little alphabet soup this summer. Visit clinical sites to strengthen your EHR skills or brush up on RACs. The knowledge you gain can help you create new case studies and incorporate new applications and activities into your courses. Use this time to recruit for your programs. During those important site visits you can share information about what your programs have to offer, or you could use your visit to create new employer and graduate profiles for student recruiting. [Read more...]

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CCHIIM Changes HIM Certification Examination Outcome Reports

The Commission on Certification for Health Informatics and Information Management (CCHIIM) is currently pursuing third-party accreditation for the Registered Health Information Technician (RHIT) and Registered Health Information Administrator (RHIA) examinations by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA).

Candidate Confidentiality
To comply with third-party accreditation standards in respect to candidate confidentiality, CCHIIM will be revising the program score reports that all CAHIIM-accredited programs receive. Candidates will now be able to choose to opt out of releasing their exam results to their schools. If a candidate selects the opt-out choice on the updated exam application, that student’s name will not be provided on the program’s reports. Note that the default is to opt in, which means the name will appear on the report.

However, all students’ scores will be independently listed on the report. For those candidates who choose to opt out, the school score report will indicate “name not released” in place of a name. It is important to note that a graduation date will be listed for all candidates to indicate if the candidate is a recent or past graduate. This will help programs separate recent graduates from first-time exam takers graduating in previous years. [Read more...]

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Teaching ICD-10: A Different Look at Code Set Structure

By Dr. Steven J. Steindel, CAHIIM Board of Commissioners

In planning incremental curriculum modifications to introduce and instruct on ICD-10-CM/PCS across accredited academic program levels (associate to graduate degrees) from 2010 to 2013, some fundamental knowledge of the classification system needs to be examined.

There are many changes to ICD-10-CM and PCS that have broad training implications surrounding the transition to their use in the US for financial and administrative transaction coding under HIPAA in 2013. The commonly discussed features of the new code sets are based on the government released files containing only the reimbursable codes. Recently constructed derivative analytical databases for ICD-10-CM and PCS were prepared by introducing header terms to the government-released analytical files and analyzing these files to describe their content and produce statistics for comparison with their prior versions. [Read more...]

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Agenda Topics for CAHIIM Day at AOE

CAHIIM will provide a half-day session as the Assembly on Education on July 25 from 1–4 p.m. at the Astor Crowne Plaza Hotel in New Orleans, LA. Please check the on-site signage for room location. The agenda will include:

Discussion of the CAHIIM standards, curriculum criteria, and process for accreditation of programs in health informatics and health information management master’s degree level
An open forum on proposed revisions to the 2005 Standards for Accreditation of Health Information Management Programs—Associate and Baccalaureate. Based on the many changes in delivery of higher education today, the challenges faced by the traditional requirements of HIM pre-professional higher education, federal and state government requirements, and the emerging new roles and skill sets sought by the healthcare industry, an exploration of HIM higher education program structure, requirements, and delivery for future sustained success is a discussion that should not be missed.

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The CAHIIM Accredited Program Seal

All accredited programs are encouraged to use the Accredited Programs Seal, now available from the APAR activity menu when you log in for APAR. It is the last link page on the list. Use of this seal is optional but must be used according with the policies stated for use. The seal must also be used in conjunction with the required Accreditation Statement for Maintaining Accreditation as stated in the Accreditation Manual.

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CAHIIM Participates in Canadian LOHIM Project

(Photo 1 from left to right: Kelly Abram, MPA, CHIM, VP of Education and Professional Practice, CHIMA; Kerry Johnson, MAEd, CHIM, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ontario Institute of Technology. Photo 2: LOHIM participants revising HIM competencies)

The Canadian Health Information Management Association (CHIMA) is revising its Learning Outcomes for Health Information Management (LOHIM) document and invited CAHIIM’s executive director Claire Dixon-Lee, PhD, RHIA, CPH, FAHIMA, to participate in an on-site meeting in Toronto, Canada, in March 2010. The group included representatives from CHIMA’s staff, diploma and university program faculty from HIM programs, as well as employers and the informatics community. Canada has 15 diploma programs (similar to the US associate degree programs) and three degree programs, which CHIMA recognizes.

The LOHIM document articulates learning outcomes very similar to the competencies and knowledge clusters used by CAHIIM-accredited programs in the US at the associate and baccalaureate levels. Clearly managing health information is practiced in a similar manner in Canada, although reimbursement and privacy laws differ and ICD-10 is already commonplace for diagnostic and procedural coding.

The AHIMA Education Strategy Committee had the opportunity to review and comment on the LOHIM document in various stages of revision. A final amalgamated version is anticipated to be available this summer. To visit CHIMA’s Web site, go to www.echima.ca.

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16th Congress of the International Federation of Health Records Organization

The 16th IFHRO Congress will be held November 15-19 in Milan, Italy. Abstracts should be submitted by June 30 online at http://www.ifhro2010.it/Home_en.html. The theme of the congress is “Better Information for Better Health; The way forward to a safe, responsive and integrated healthcare.” The main congress topics include:

Classification systems
Clinical coding and quality of data
Electronic health records
Health records and patient safety
Clinical documentation and scientific research
Data management and integration

A pre-congress International Educator’s Forum will be held on Monday, November 15, which may be of interest to you. New IFHRO Education Modules, including one on the electronic health record and a manual for educators, will be launched at the congress. Education-focused abstracts should be submitted through the online IFHRO system. Any inquiries for that specific program may be addressed to claire.dixon-lee@cahiim.org.

You may also be interested in the trade exhibition of health information related systems and services at the congress, which will help keep you up to date with different types of commercial developments related to HIM from around the world. Our Italian colleagues are planning a great social program and you can be sure of a very warm welcome in Milan.

For details, registration, hotel information, and more, please visit www.ifhro.org.

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APAR Annual Report and New Data Updates

Congratulations to everyone who worked hard to complete their Annual Program Assessment Reports (APARs)! Here are some tips for next year that can make this process easier:

Print out your report from this year as reference
Start a folder to collect data in preparation for next year
Write your EPC code and password inside the folder
Enrollment statistics will reflect the 2009–2010 academic year (August 1, 2009–July 31, 2010), so place enrollment, attrition, and graduate data in your APAR folder this fall
When you receive your certification examination cumulative report (November), make a copy and place in your APAR folder; check for errors in the report at that time to allow the examination vendor to issue a corrected report
Keep copies of results from your graduate and employer satisfaction surveys and graduate placement data in your APAR folder as you collect it
Prepare your updated program evaluation plan, goals, target outcomes, steps to achieve results, responsible persons, action steps, etc. in a Word document to cut/paste into APAR next year
Use section VII to record any substantive changes that can be expected during the next academic year, such as impending change in program director, institution name change, inactivity of program, or other key events you want CAHIIM to know about in advance. Refer to the CAHIIM Accreditation Manual for details on officially reporting substantive changes when they occur.
Section VIII will need updating if you have changes in a course title or prefix, official sequencing or credit hour allocations; otherwise that section will not need to be amended each year.

The table below presents preliminary data comparing academic year 2007–2008 with the recently reported academic year 2008–2009 HIM student enrollments and graduates across 273 programs (53 baccalaureate and 220 associate degree programs). HIM programs voluntarily submit this data in the Annual Program Assessment Report (APAR). CAHIIM publishes this information in aggregate form only, and the data are subject to change pending finalization of APAR reports.

Early observations show a steady increase of 25 percent in overall enrollments of 21,504 students, while graduates demonstrate a -9 percent decrease, most significantly at the baccalaureate level. While various assumptions can be made, readers are cautioned that this is still preliminary data and further analyses will be conducted by staff. Programs should review their data over time and examine recruitment, admissions, and retention policies and practices if improvements are warranted.

APAR Preliminary HIM Program Enrollments and Graduates—2008 and 2009 Comparison

Enrollment	Full Time	Part Time	Total
% Difference over previous year	27%	23%	25%
2008–2009
Baccalaureate	1,878	1,332	3,210
Associate	6,746	11,548	18,294
Totals	8,624	12,880	21,504

2007–2008
Baccalaureate	1,818	1,015	2,833
Associate	4,952	9,481	14,433
Totals	6,770	10,496	17,266


Graduates
% Difference over previous year	-21%	15%	-9%
2008–2009
Baccalaureate	490	245	735
Associate	1,456	1,203	2,659
Totals	1,946	1,448	3,394

2007–2008
Baccalaureate	1,160	224	1,384
Associate	1,310	1,036	2,346
Totals	2,470	1,260	3,730

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Compiling a Successful Progress Report

Many programs are required to submit a progress report within six months to one year post CAHIIM accreditation. The CAHIIM Board requires progress reports from those programs that must correct a deficiency or item of concern. In choosing the due date or time period for a progress report, CAHIIM considers the type of deficiencies and the amount of time it may take a program to resolve one or more deficiencies, such as revise a core course and seek campus approval, implement a curriculum sequencing revision, purchase and implement a technology application, or resolve a budgetary issue.

The format for a program response requires documentation to substantiate the corrective action taken. For example, submission of a revised syllabus, a detailed course schedule, samples of the activities that support the student learning process related to the deficiency, improved test items at higher taxonomic levels, or other appropriate documentation indicating that the correction has occurred, the course is being taught, or technology has been implemented. [Read more...]

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Welcome New Panel of Accreditation Reviewers

CAHIIM recognizes the addition of the following new Panel of Accreditation Reviewers:

Cathy Banks, MS, RHIA

Mona Calhoun, MS, RHIA
Beth Climer, MPH, RHIA
Melanie Endicott, MBA/HCM, RHIA, CCS, CCS-P
Leah Grebner, MS, RHIA, CCS, FAHIMA
Fanny Hawkins, EdD, MPH, CPHQ, RHIA
Shannon Houser, PhD, MPH, RHIA
Josette Jones, PhD, RN
Angela Morey, MSM, RHIA
Ellen Shakespeare, MBA, RHIA

Myni Vazquez, MS, RHIA

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Call for Panel of Accreditation Reviewers

CAHIIM continues to seek additional educator volunteers to serve on the CAHIIM Panel of Accreditation Reviewers for all academic levels. If you are interested, please visit CAHIIM’s volunteer page for qualifications and information or contact Benjamin Reed, accreditation coordinator.

Candidates will undergo a telephone interview by staff before final selection by the CAHIIM Board are made for 2010. We need additional site visitors who are experienced with any of the following academic levels: associate, baccalaureate, and master’s degree programs in health information management, master’s degree programs in health informatics, and experience with online education delivery.

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Board of Commissioners Awards Accreditation

The following academic programs were awarded Initial Accreditation:

HIM Baccalaureate Degree
University of South Carolina Upstate, Spartanburg, SC

HIM Associate Degree
Columbus Technical College, Columbus, GA
Collin County Community College, McKinney, TX

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