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. Read her full story.

AHDI-West sent a delegation to the 2011 Advocacy Summit in Washington, DC. Read the details of this experience by some members of our delegation.

March 2011 through May 2011

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.

AHDI is proud to announce these newly elected directors to the National Leadership Board (NLB), who will serve their terms as follows:

Thank you, elected leaders and candidates, for your commitment to excellence and support of the Association through advocacy, standards-setting, and education. Thank you also to the AHDI members who took the time to cast your votes and help to shape the future of the association and industry. On behalf of AHDI members, board of directors, and staff, we congratulate you!

Dear Colleagues:

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

CHANGE… IS EVERYTHING

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