Postponed until Spring 2012

WHEN: Saturday, October 15

Too many scheduling conflicts have prevented us proceeding with this event. We apologize to all those who were planning to attend.  We will reschedule (and expand) our program for Spring 2012.

It is with a mixture of profound humility and great excitement that I officially step into the role of District 1 Director on the National Leadership Board of AHDI as of September 1, 2011. Again I want to thank all the members in District 1 for allowing me the privilege of representing you at the national level, and I’m going to do my very best to conduct myself in a manner that is worthy of your trust. There’s no question that we have a lot of work to do, but I have every confidence that the members of the NLB, our new CEO, and the hard-working AHDI staff will be able to work cooperatively with our component leaders and the membership at large to accomplish great things in the coming months and years.

I’m still savoring the sights and sounds of ACE 2011 at the gorgeous JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort in Phoenix. If you weren’t able to attend and haven’t seen my blog posts from the conference, I hope you’ll check them out at the AHDI Lounge. There’s also a wonderful photo gallery of images of the resort taken by Christine Tyrrell, of Tyrrell Software, Winner of the Technology Innovation Award. For me the entire conference experience was extremely rewarding and worthwhile, especially from a networking perspective, as I had multiple opportunities to sit down and chat with attendees from District 1 throughout the week. Although the tone of many of the sessions was cautionary in light of the uncertain future our profession faces, I came away with a renewed sense of optimism about what lies before us. I highly encourage everyone who possibly can to start planning and saving for ACE 2012 in Indianopolis, as I’m confident you’ll find the experience both fun and rewarding, both personally and professionally.

Of course, after the conference is over, the real work begins, and I’m ready to roll up my sleeves on behalf of District 1 and our association as a whole. I’ll be participating in regular NLB meetings at least monthly as we tackle some tough issues, including our financial concerns, the need to put our Strategic Initiatives into action, and the future of our relationship with CDIA, just to name a few. I’m also eager to visit as many venues within District 1 as possible during the coming year. It’s my goal to work with the local, state and regional components within District 1 to find ways for me to get out and meet as many of our members as I can. I also intend to hold frequent online webinar meetings where District 1 members and I can hang out and talk about what’s on our minds and stay abreast of what’s happening in the association and the industry on a national level. Also as part of my commitment to being accessible to the members of District 1, please note the email address and phone number I’ve provided below, and don’t hesitate to contact me by either method at any time. I also welcome your friend requests on Facebook.

Finally, I want to let you know about a new resource that’s available on the AHDI website. Each of the district directors now have dedicated web pages to be used to stay in touch with their members, and the District 1 page can be found at http://www.ahdionline.org/tabid/633/Default.aspx. While still a work in progress, our district web page already offers a great deal of useful information and links to other relevant sites. I hope you’ll make a habit of dropping in from time to time to stay up to date on what’s happening in our district. You can also check out the other district web pages and clicking on any of the other districts on the map.

Have a great September, and hope to see you–virtually or in person–very soon!

Jay Vance, CMT

Director, District 1

AHDI National Leadership Board

928-275-1535

AHDI-WEST Accepting Nominations for

2012 Board of Governors

Do you have:

• an interest in leadership?
• a desire to make a difference?
• time to commit on a monthly basis?

Directors will be responsible for overseeing one of the following AHDI Strategic Initiatives:

• Advocacy & Alliances
• Membership
• Education
• Credentialing

All Director positions will be appointed following election. All positions are a 1-year term. New terms begin January, 2012.

All nominees must be an current member of AHDI (Associate members are not eligible). Nominate yourself or a fellow member (with their permission).

Submit your nomination

By Kris Porter, AHDI-West Secretary

I was born and raised in Sandy, Utah (which is south of Salt Lake City).  I attended Jordan High School, the University of Utah, and participated in Study Abroad at Cambridge University.  I started out as a nursing major at the University of Utah, finishing all the prerequisite requirements (which included absolutely no general education or liberal education classes) to apply to the nursing college, then at the 11th hour decided to change my major to English (yes, really!).  My declared major remained (remains?) English, but I dabbled in ethnomusicology, linguistics, comparative lit, archeology, and anthropology (yes, all very practical degrees, much to my father’s chagrin).  I put my education “on hold” to have a baby and, four children later, am waiting anxiously for the day I can return to school (once I decide what I truly want to be when I grow up.

I am the youngest of three children.  My mom always wanted to go on to college, but never had the financial resources to do so, and instilled in each of her children a free spirit and a love of learning.  My father taught us all to work hard, take pride in what we do, and to stay grounded (I think he sometimes wishes I had balanced the free spirit and staying grounded a little better, though).

I have been married for 22 years (yes, I was a child bride) and have four children (all named after authors) who are truly the most gifted, amazing, beautiful, talented, and funny children on the planet (Kathryn Anne, 20, Geoffrey, 18, Alex, 13, and Nathaniel, 10.)  Before I had kids, I loved to play the piano and organ, read, knit, and browse used book stores and antique stores with my husband, Tony (major nerd dates, believe me!).  My children have all learned to read relatively early in life and we still try to find time to read together (yes, I still make time to read).  I performed with an Eastern European music/dance troupe for 6 years and met my husband when we were both performing with the choirs at the University of Utah (he has the most incredible baritone voice with a range that allows him to sing tenor, baritone, and bass and I still melt every time he sings).  I’m sure I had other hobbies, but I’ve kind of forgotten what they were—I’m hoping that as my children grow I’ll eventually remember some of those interests as well as find time to explore new hobbies.  Tony currently performs with the Utah Symphony and Opera as a member of the Opera Chorus and has performed in many community theatre productions over the past 18 years.  (My children actually enjoy classical music and at 18 months of age Geoffrey could sing the Pirate King’s song and the police chorus from Pirates of Penzance!)  Kathryn plays the violin and piano, Geoffrey played the clarinet, and Alex and Nathaniel have both taught themselves several songs on the piano, and I’m still holding out hope that at least one child will play the drums and the bagpipes.

I started out as a “candy-striper” at Cottonwood Hospital in Murray, Utah, when I was 14 years old.  I then worked in the dietary department, moved on to be an editor in Health Services Research and Development at the VA Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, and worked in the benefits office in the personnel department at the University of Utah.  When I had my first baby, I returned to Intermountain Healthcare, working in PBX, the medical staffing office (credentialing physicians), several InstaCares (doing admitting, billing, and transcription), and the emergency department (transcription).  I am currently working as the Quality Assurance and Training Supervisor for the Intermountain Healthcare Transcription Department and I am serving as the secretary for AHDI-West.

Medical transcription always interested me and, to some extent, I feel as though it comes naturally to me.  As I look back at my education experience, I realize that I couldn’t have planned a better education plan for doing what I do.  I love working in the healthcare industry, I love to learn, and I love language (I have been known to read the dictionary for fun) — a great recipe for a “medical language specialist!”  I think transcription is an exciting field and I’m actually excited about some of the changes in our industry and the challenges that will come with those changes.  I think credentialing is important and I am hoping to sit for the CMT examination by the end of the year!

Read the details of this experience:

Carrie Boatman, CMT, AHDI-F

My day started out by attending a Constituent Breakfast with Senator Dianne Feinstein.  She spoke about things she was working on and different bills, as well as the budget crisis.  She took some questions and asked the kids in the group some too.  Very informative.  She then had her staff introduce themselves and what areas they worked in and finally the interns on her staff.  Great way to start the day!

Then it was off to Congressman Michael Honda’s office to meet with his health aide, Ahmed Bhadelia.  We had a great conversation and found out that several of his family members are physicians and he has heard it first hand from them.  We will be sending a draft copy of the letter to support inclusion of narrative dictation to them for consideration.

I tagged along with the Arizona group to one of their meetings and then it was back to Senator Feinstein’s office for a meeting with Nora Connors. Again, very receptive and appreciative of our efforts in keeping the Senator’s office informed.

I felt very good about our day on the hill, well, except for the rain!

Karen Fox-Acosta, CMT, AHDI-F

The offices I visited included Congress members in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Washington states, Joseph Pitts, Tim Walberg, and Norman Dicks, respectively. For California I met with Bob Filner, my congressman in the 51st district in San Diego and I sat in on a meeting (with Noel and Lea) with Wally Herger’s office in the 2nd district or Chico area, which is near where we have property in Northern California. Every office I spoke with agreed to review a draft letter. Upon arriving home I received a thank you letter from Bob Filner’s office and they are interested in providing an op ed. For Norman Dicks office in Washington, he was very pleased I was there to represent Washington members and his aid seemed genuinely interested in our cause. Congressman Dicks focuses on environmental concerns so we had a great chat about how our industry is “green.” We have an excellent champion if we can develop the relationship with Joseph Pitts office in Pennsylvania as he has dedicated some of his interests in medical devices. It may seem like a stretch but I have information for his office based on conversations I have had with Scott Edelstein regarding potential legislation that could require EHR software platforms to be considered medical devices thus regulated by the FDA; finding common interests is how you build champion relationships. We also have active members on the CDIA and AHDI side in Pennsylvania so we are going to get those folks connected. Michigan also will require some relationship building with our members there as Tim Walberg’s office seemed very interested. With Wally Herger’s office, his aid was hesitant to commit the congressman due the position he serves as the chair of the ways and means committee; however, I also suggested to his aide, Larry Charleston, IV, MD, that I would be in the Chico area visiting with MTs at Enloe as well as other professionals at Feather River Hospital, two of the largest hospital enterprises in Mr. Herger’s district. Overall, I left DC feeling like we had the most successful experience thus far in our visits and now the followup is crucial, which will be helped by staff at AHDI, and our 2nd/3rd quarter activities to meet with our legislators while they are home from August to September will be instrumental in adding a solid component to our momentum.

Jacque Taylor, AHDI-F

As always, it was a very exciting time.  There were four representatives there from your AHDI-West BOG to include Carrie Boatman, Maggie Thebeault, Sandy Shumaker, and me (Jacque Taylor).  The AHDI board of directors meeting was held on Tuesday, May 3, where among other things, it was announced again that Sherry Doggett had been voted in by the national BOD to fill the vacancy of President-Elect when Ava Marie George resigned.  Linda Giles will be filling the empty director’s spot to bring the board back up to minimum level as set forth in the bylaws of the association until August 2011.  As Sherry was the current Treasurer, there was a vote held to replace that officer position.  Brett McCutcheon was elected to fill the spot of Treasurer until the end of the current term in August 2011. Sherry Doggett will become President of AHDI effective September 1, 2011.

On Wednesday, May 3, which was designated as our hill visit, I was able to meet with 2 of my legislators face-to-face, Senator Mike Lee (1^st term) and Representative Jim Matheson (aka Congressman Cowboy Boots :0) along with their health legislative aides, and with Senator Hatch’s health legislative aides.  The following sums up my visits with each of them:

Senator Mike Lee (R) Utah: Senator Lee is in his very first term in Washington this year, and made a point to come into the meeting, sat for a while, listened to what we had to say and seemed quite interested.  However, most of the conversation was with Amber Sechrist who was very pleasant and took many notes. I will follow up with him in his Utah office.

Senator Orrin Hatch (R) Utah: Hayden Rhudy was a new legislative aide this year, replacing Patty DeLouche who I had met with the 5 years prior.  She took down the information I presented and seemed quite interested, but I had to go over all the basic fundamentals that Patty had already been familiar with and was of such a great help; however, I was not able to meet with Senator Hatch.  I plan to make an appointment with Senator Hatch himself in his office in Utah.

Congressman Jim Matheson (D) Utah: Representative Matheson has always expressed interest in our message and this year was no exception.  His wife is a physician at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City and is very aware of the pros and cons of the EHR and not really happy with the current format.  Rep. Matheson was very appalled at the fact that they were thinking of leaving the narrative off the patient health record, and said he would definitely follow up.  He is presently a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and would be a very good contact for followup.

A meeting was held after the day on the hill to recap everything that had been done.  I believe in total there were 87 hill visits made by all that attended, and there were many first timers at the event that were eager to get involved and become advocates for our profession.  It was very inspiring to listen to all of their stories.  It was encouraged by AHDI staff for all attendees to be sure to follow up their visits with thank you notes and also set up an appointment at their legislators’ state offices when they are away from DC.

A good time was had by all, and it was fun to be housed at the Georgetown Hotel, right in the middle of Georgetown University campus, surrounded by the academic atmosphere and energy.  Another very successful meeting!

Maggie Thebeault, CMT, AHDI-F

We met the healthcare legislative aide for Senator John Kyl.  We gave our message and left a packet.

We met Kelly Ferguson, aide for Congressman Paul Gosar, DDS of Arizona. The aide indicated the congressman was understanding of the issues with the EHR, meaningful use, and would be interested in the information we shared. Due to his medical background, the aide felt he would likely wish to participate in some way and would like to see an oped article that he could share.

We also met Tara Robertson, aide for David Drier of California with Sandy Shumaker.

We had planned to meet with Alexander from Tennessee, but our first meeting went long. We dropped off a packet with his aide. Later we stopped by a second Tennessee representative’s office, who had no scheduled AHDI appointments, to drop off a leftover packet.

Sandy Shumaker, CMT, AHDI-F

Senator Dianne Feinstein (California):  We were lucky enough to be invited to a constituent breakfast with the Senator and had a front row seat for the event!  The senator’s staff had prepared excellent pamphlets and flyers representing the topics the Senator is presently working on including the budget, housing and foreclosure issues and protecting California’s deserts.  There were several students at our table from the LA area who were traveling with their history teacher and principal and had been sightseeing in DC for the week.  Their impressions of DC were exciting to hear and their enthusiasm was definitely contagious for being at our nation’s capitol.

Rep David Dreier (California): This was my 3^rd year in this office, meeting with the same legislative aide so it was like “old home week.”  We were met with warmth by Tara Ord Robertson who escorted us into Rep Dreier’s office which is beautiful!  Rep Dreier has been in Congress a number of years and longevity definitely has its perks.  Tara listened while we outlined our talking points and definitely was receptive to our presentation.  We also asked if Rep Dreier would sign an op-ed piece and were provided with the name of the aide in charge of communications for Rep Dreier.  We made the point that we had been in touch with the senior legislative aide in Rep Dreier’s office back home and would be sending off the same information we provided to his office in DC.  I felt it was a very productive meeting, and it helped to have made a connection in the 2 previous years.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (California): This year, we met with Nora Connors, a legislative aide for the Senator.  Carrie Boatman was very well prepared with her talking points and I felt, between the 2 of us, we were able to cover a great deal.  Nora was receptive but not having heard from AHDI in previous years, it was necessary to lay the ground work before jumping to our main reasons for being on the hill.  She indicated she would keep the Senator informed and appreciated our handouts.

All in all, it was a great trip!  Being in Georgetown and being right in the middle of Georgetown University was fantastic!

RMTs

Kathleen Correa, RMT, Moreno Valley, CA

Glenn Masuko, RMT, Honolulu, HI

Lindsay Stewart, RMT, Orem, UT

There weren’t any newly credentialed CMTs during this period.

Recently I attended the California Health Information Association (CHIA) annual meeting at the Town & Country Resort and Convention Center here in San Diego. I spoke at the convention and CHIA graciously waived my registration fees ($375 early bird value) in exchange for speaking at their convention. This gave me a wonderful opportunity to not only address HIM-related professionals in a focused education session but also gave me time to meet HIM folks from all over the world. The convention brought just over 500 attendees and roughly 80 vendors and was the largest convention ever, and they have been trending up for about the last 3 years. The convention program title was “Make the Connection,” and the connection theme was interwoven through all aspects of the convention experience.

Fox Session: There were about 100 people who showed up for my session, Documentation Integrity, What’s At Stake? I was very nervous about presenting to such a large group of HIM professionals. I had a lot of information to cover, and there are certainly some things I’d change if I had it to do over again. I did get a big thank you from a gal who used to be a transcriptionist, and there was one HIM manager who is in a place with her system she is able to make some course corrections so I was able to give her a consultation referral. I found it very compelling that over half the room had EHR systems that included some component of transcription either on-site or through an outside service. It became very apparent to me that we still have a big gap between the two professions in how to address documentation errors and completeness (and at what point in the workflow process), and we need to further our collaboration with AHIMA at all levels to address the questions raised around completeness of the documentation, for what purposes and when, at the genesis of the record or forensically much later in the workflow stream from both sides of the aisle. Of great concern to the audience (in my session and throughout the conference) was discussion around how to address “cut and paste” in the EHR. This came up as concern for accurate information and reimbursement issues. Also, all of us need to fully understand the changes currently in front of the physicians as far as transition to ICD-10, pay for performance, present on admission conditions, computerized physician order entry (CPOE), and how those changes affect the complexity of documentation and how we can be a part of the contribution solution.

Outreach made: As many of you know, I love the one-on-one conversations you can have at face-to-face meetings. This convention was no different, and I did my best to represent the healthcare documentation community and AHDI well. I met Bonnie Cassidy, AHIMA 2011 President; Wanda T. Ziemba, 1^st year CHIA director; Dr Paul Tang, Chair of the Meaningful Use committee for ONC; and Aaron Seib, Policy and Program Director of Cal eConnect.

Ms. Cassidy and I discussed the AHDI board coming to Salt Lake City during the AHIMA convention and our desire to connect with their board and our CDIA partners while at the AHIMA convention (October 2 through 5, 2011). For those within reach of Salt Lake City, AHDI-West is going to have a regional event on Saturday, October 1, 2011, and the AHDI board will be in attendance so save the date!

Wanda and I had multiple conversations about the integrity of the content of documentation, and she is a huge supporter of learning ways to give presentations to folks who do not want to hear the information, and I attended her session titled “Guiding the Reluctant – Bringing Physicians on Board with ICD-10” which was a fantastic presentation and highlighted her professional speaking skills and she spoke eloquently about how to incorporate the “what’s in it for them” conversation, and she highlighted how to become a choreographer of change and how to stage the process to achieve goals. I was very impressed with her knowledge, her willingness to collaborate, and her offer to help others learn the skills. Another topic we covered was considering a collaborative research project on obtaining date about pre-EHR implementation revenue versus post-EHR implementation revenue streams, something the Sherry Doggett, AHDI President-Elect, spoke about during our last AHDI board meeting. Talk about being thrilled to find a sweet spot for collaborative efforts!

Paul Tang, MD, referenced that the MU committee had just sent its recommendations to the ONC (open comment period for this topic should be in August or September), and he confirmed that dictation/transcription will be in the report his committee has submitted as part of phase 2 of the MU criteria – this is just a first draft so there’s no solid guarantee; however, this is proof that our advocacy efforts are working, and we need to celebrate our due diligence in nudging the needle of change.

Of equal excitement for me was the chance to meet Mr. Aaron Seib of Cal eConnect. This group is the next iteration of what was once CalRHIO, and Cal eConnect is the designated California health information exchange (HIE) and has received $38 million in grant funding from the ONC/HITECH act to create health care system interoperability in our state. As some of you may remember, 2005 to 2007, connecting and collaborating with CalRHIO was high on the goals list the years I was in leadership in California, and some of you attended the CalRHIO meeting in Los Angeles with me. This connection has remained a strategic goal as I have transitioned to national director and as part of aligning ourselves with the advocacy and alliance strategic implementation. That said, Mr Seib was thrilled to meet representation from an organization that is willing to provide input, and I am following up by connecting him with Steve Gaus and David Owen, directors on the CDIA board, as subject-matter experts in the medical data exchange. I will also work toward how we can bring the AHDI voice to the table regarding some of the more granular concepts of accuracy, complexity and completeness of patient health information, not just health data.

If you are interested in any of the above topics, I’d love to have more of our members connect to these purpose-driven initiatives and so please email me and let’s talk.

The sessions I found intriguing included topics on training coders in anatomy and physiology in preparation for ICD-10 (opportunity for our school programs), application of natural language processing in computer-assisted coding but we also talked about NLP relevance in codifying narrative text (can you say Health Story Project), the session above on guiding the reluctant, RAC updates and actual cases on how HIM professionals are dealing increase in number of records requested and how facilities have reversed some of the original RAC audits initial decisions. Another was on workflow for HIM and how facilities need to ensure they have a workflow model that is functional before they implement an EHR technology solution. There was an excellent session on privacy laws and release of information. There were also multiple sessions on computer assisted coding, clinical documentation improvement and analysis and ICD-10 transition, with comments that if only MDs were documenting correctly now the move to ICD-10 would be a piece of cake (note the opportunity for us in this transition).

The general sessions covered everything from Release your Brilliance by keynote Simon T. Bailey to Dr. Paul Tang discussing transformative public policy in the application of meaningful use criteria. One of the highlights for me out of Dr. Tang’s presentation was how meaningful use is intended to bring the public into their healthcare, to become meaningful users of their own health information and this deliberate inclusion of the patient in MU is a huge opportunity for us and aligns well with the advocacy voice around patient safety and the broader health of United States citizens that Dewey Square helped us envision as we grow our AHDI/CDIA public awareness campaign in 2012. Lorraine Fernandes spoke on health care trends and HIM challenges worldwide, CHIA recognized their many volunteers and scholarship award winners, and Bonnie Cassidy, AHIMA President, thoroughly covered Leadership in Action, HIM’s Role in Health Care Transformation and how AHIMA plays a role in that process. She spoke of data governance/data stewardship and AHIMA providing evidence-based research. She went over the top-10 list for HIM teams in ICD-10 implementation, and I see some huge roles for our profession to engage in this process. On the governance side, AHIMA is looking at trends in association business and becoming a “world class organization,” and their delegates will be addressing the continuity and relevance of their bylaws; asking the question, “what exactly does the House do?”, with all HOD and state leaders considering these goals, “the board governs the association (fiduciary responsibility) and the House governs the HIM profession.” Sound familiar?

Overall, I found many parallels with what AHIMA professionals and members are being faced with as far as technology conversion, overwhelmed by so many changes in such a short period of time, preserving relevant patient information and maintaining patient privacy and security, expanding into the worldwide marketplace, and how to keep education and association membership in the forefront as the vehicle for transformation. The three biggest reasons why I think CHIA has seen an increase in convention attendance are because they have ICD-10 implementation, meaningful use criteria obligations, privacy and security breach enforcement penalties, RAC audits, as well as technology and workflow changes occurring at every turn and inclusion in learning about these relevant topics is invigorating and imperative for their members to experience.

Let’s see if we cannot get a team of AHDI-West members to attend the next CHIA meeting to be held in Santa Clara June 10 to 13, 2012. I’ll see you there!

Karen L. Fox-Acosta, CMT, AHDI-F

By Jacque Taylor, AHDI-F

Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C., is quoted to have said “Everything changes, nothing remains without change.”  Think about it.  Even then, changes were happening all over the universe.  If there were no such thing as change, we could all still be walking around earth with clubs fashioned of tree trunks, wearing clothing made of animal hide, surviving on nuts and berries from the land that had not yet been contaminated, and partaking of meat from the hunters and gatherers.  If not for change, we would not have some of the many things we take for granted now, such as air conditioning in the summer, furnaces for heating in the winter; automobiles that were once such simple mechanical wonders into computers on wheels with features that even allow the car to park itself and GPS navigational equipment so one does not get lost quite so easily.

Change is something that I look back on with amazement to see how much has changed in my lifetime.  When I was young (I’m dating myself, I know…) and in the 3^rd grade at Grandview Elementary in Provo, Utah (standing no more), our family had one of the first large screen television in the city. I still have that television… a grand invention, complete with a “large” 11 inch screen, an AM radio, and a 45 rpm and 78 rpm record player (the vinyl kind, not the CDs of today), along with storage and large speakers built in. My entire 3^rd grade class took a “field trip” to my home in order to watch Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. It received 3 channels, all local, NBC, ABC, and CBS.  How amazing was that to actually watch something happening around the world right there in my home.   I look at it in wonder now and compare it to the large 62” screen we have now with remote control, cable, and the ability to watch anything in the world. Change, my friends, change.

When I entered the working environment in the clerical field, after having learned how to type on an LC Smith typewriter that I swear weighs about 100 pounds with manual round keys that would stick together in the most inopportune times, then graduation to the amazing IBM Selectric, I was fortunate to be employed by IBM Corporation, which was then the leader in technology.  Amazingly enough, I was at IBM when they introduced their first personal computer. Words cannot express how thrilling that was.  So, again, change for the better.  Computer systems that would take a huge amount of space, sometimes several rooms, and used to require climate-controlled, dust-free environments, are now small enough to fit into your pocket or briefcase.  Sometimes we neglect to look back and see that yes, change has happened, is now happening, and will continue to happen.

Now after being in the medical transcription profession for nearly 10 years, I have seen and am continuing to see changes happening right in our own areas of healthcare documentation.  When I first went to school in 2000, a proud MTEC grad, we were still studying based on the traditional way of doing documentation with tapes and computers.  No voice recognition (I believe it was out but not widely used), no EHR (still in its infancy), just the dictation on sometimes not so reliable cassette tapes of many shapes and sizes.  In 10 short years, right under our noses, look at what opportunities await us in our field because of continuing change!  We now have the schools teaching voice recognition and speech editing, as that has become one of the major changes in the way we do things. Some of our medical transcription professionals are going on to become HIT professionals, privacy and security professionals, instructors, teachers, professors, managers, directors, business owners, all because they decided to become a medical transcriptionist.  Our profession now has an active voice in advocating, with yearly trips to Washington D.C. to meet with our legislators and voicing our concerns with patient care.  We didn’t have that before.  Most of us (including myself) sat still and watched as we saw dooms-day reports that we were becoming obsolete because we were not able to evolve with the EHR, the EMR, speech recognition, etc.  Well, as far as I can see, that prediction has not come true… and, in my estimation, it will not.  Will we still be traditional medical transcriptionists? Sitting at keyboards, listening (or trying) to doctors dictate? Perhaps… but the most important thing is that we are now beginning to be seen as the professionals we are, as having an amazing amount of knowledge available at our fingertips, and are beginning to be recognized not by how fast our fingers move on a keyboard, but for the brainpower we possess as a result of deciding to become a medical transcriptionist.

“Change is everything, and it begins with you.” I still have my red tee-shirt with that written on it from our ACE event in Reno in 2007 with Cathy Baughman as president.  Change IS everything.  We are all changing every day… the world is changing every day… the universe is changing every day.  We can either embrace it, or stand by idly and watch it go by.  I choose to embrace it… what about you?

AHDI INTEGRITY AWARD NOMINEES HAVE BEEN POSTED

Click here to view nominatees for these AHDI categories.

by Kat King, AHDI-F
AHDI-West President-Elect

I have been honored to represent our region and our association on several trips to Washington, DC. Some of those visits included face-to-face conversations with our senators or congressmen, but we generally share our message with their healthcare aides. These individuals have become well-versed in our industry over the past few years, showing the inroads and impact we are having at the federal level.

I have served on the AHDI Legislative Issues Group, and have become familiar with the information we need to convey to our legislators; EHR adoption including the narrative report (the patient’s full story), health information exchange, conversion of narrative text into codified data, and the need for workforce development funding. They are not difficult messages to understand, but they won’t be included in legislation unless WE convey the messages to our legislators!

Unfortunately, I am not able to make the trek to DC this year due to my school schedule, but the great thing is that legislators come “home” and hold town hall meetings around their region. After 5 trips to DC, there was one senator whose schedule could not permit a personal visit. No problem! I saw the notice on my local community college home page that Senator Ron Wyden (Oregon) was scheduled to hold a town hall meeting at my college. Oh, I am so there!! Armed with a brief “talking point” document and camera, I attended the town hall meeting. In the midst of Korean War veterans and citizens concerned about the various environmental topics, I was prepared to deliver a different message. Senator Wyden assured the crowd he was not going to stand up and have us listen to him for the next 90 minutes, but he wanted to hear from us.

I grasped my little ticket firmly (the one they give you if you wish to ask a question), waiting for my number to be called….like a raffle drawing, but the 90 minutes flew by and I was not called upon. Hey, no worries. I’ll go up to him and introduce myself. While waiting for pictures to be taken with the Korean War veterans, I introduced myself to our college president, who was the emcee for the meeting. After hearing my message, he insisted on introducing me to Senator Wyden. I did have the privilege of sharing our concerns with the senator. The fact I had tried to meet with him on 5 different occasions in DC did not go unnoticed. He asked his local aide to forward to him all the information I provided and asked her to make sure they make time on his schedule in DC when our delegation comes to visit in May.Of course, I asked to have a picture taken with him. Wouldn’t you know, my camera battery died at that moment! The campus photographer offered to take our picture, but later realized his SD (memory) card was not in the camera. (I forgave him!) I’m sending Senator Wyden a picture of me along with the newly-published talking points. The important thing is that I did my part to convey the messages. On top of that, I have been invited by the president of Rogue Community College to serve on his legislative committee!!