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In This Issue:  President's Message The Buzz...Continues About E-Discovery Mark Your Calendars for 2008 Annual Conference Changes for WI Chapters 51.30 and 146? Document Management Have You Updated Your Member Profile? Win a Scholarship from WHIMA E-Communication Team Changes for HFS 132.45 Calling All Members! Just Do It!President's Message
Happy Holidays to all of my WHIMA colleagues! 2007 has come to an end…but 2008 has only just begun!! I would like to use this Message to communicate what WHIMA has been up to since this summer. As you know, WHIMA has a number of work teams, each busy with carrying out different aspects to achieve WHIMA strategic goals or “Big Rocks”; ultimately enhancing the Mission and Vision of our Association. • First, let me start there. At the strategic planning session last spring, the WHIMA Board outlined the strategic plan for 2008. It identified 5 “Big Rocks”. I will report on
• At that same meeting, the Board discussed the desire to change the Association Mission, Vision and Values. We have gone through several iterations, to date. Although this version has not been formally voted on by the Board, I’d like to share with you the latest and most favored: • VISION o The Ultimate Resource in Health Information Management • MISSION o The Wisconsin Health Information Management Association mission is to be the principal voice for Wisconsin Health Information Professionals to innovate, advance, and teach the Health Information Management practices required for tomorrow’s medicine. • WHIMA VALUES: Enhancing the leadership skills and excellence of all our members. Networking and promoting continual learning for professional growth. Mentoring incoming health information professionals. Creating a culture of innovation, discovery and collaboration. Promoting the security, privacy and confidentiality of health information. Advancing the effective and efficient use of technology to improve the quality of, use of, and access to health information as the optimal framework for quality patient care. Participating and advocating in the development of state and national standards of practice. Influencing and drafting public policy and legislation. Read on for information about the Strategic Issues and volunteer teams and their work to date... The Buzz...Continues About E-Discovery Conversations were buzzing at the Leadership Conference held this past November in Neenah WI on e-Discovery. What was the buzz about? Just over a year ago, on December 1, 2006, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure changed their rules regarding e-discovery which has significant influence on enterprise-wide record management. Although this covers federal cases such as class action suits and employment litigation, this has the inevitable trickle down impact on state cases. Already 50% of states have updated or are actively changing their rules to be more aligned with the federal policy.
Where does one begin? A critical first step in preparing for this change is to establish a policy regarding retention /destruction schedules for the various types of records and electronic communications. Michelle Dougherty, RHIA, CHP, suggested starting with categorizing the various record types, e.g., Administrative Records, Financial, and Clinical. Then determine the data sources where these can be found, including the “shadow sources” such as clinician’s personal computers. She provided the example of email which may be backed up on the email server for six months; however, downloaded copies still reside on multiple PCs both within and outside of the enterprise. Next, maintain a history of the location of the record types since many are in the process of converting from paper to an electronic form. Also identify the custodian of the record(s) who would be the point of contact for a legal hold or retrieval. These efforts will help ease the concerns around e-discovery in future litigations. For a more comprehensive discussion of this topic refer to AHIMA’s article “The New Electronic Discovery Civil Rule” and e-discovery Practice Brief. Thanks to Michelle Dougherty, AHIMA Director of Practice Leadership for her assistance with this article and sharing her knowledge and expertise at the conference. Changes Considered for WI Chapters 51.30 and 146 The Department of Health and Family Services (DHFS), to further assist in health information exchange, requested input from WHIMA and HIPAA COW regarding changes to Wisconsin Statutes 51.30 and 146.81-146.83 identified from the Health Information Security and Privacy Collaboration (HISPC) grant. The Governor’s eHealth Care Quality and Patient Safety Board at its December meeting adopted four recommendations that impact Chapters 51.30 and 146. For the recommendations made by the Governor's eHealth Care Quality and Safety Board go to...Recommendations to 51.30 and 146 It's a Never Ending Quest...Office Productivity In the never-ending quest for office productivity, recent research into the lifecycle of a document has proven the need for document management solutions. Here's a short list of researchers' findings according to Coopers & Lybrand: • 9 copies are made of each electronically saved document • It costs $20 in labor to file each paper document • It costs $120 in labor to search for each misfiled paper document • 1 out of every 20 paper documents is lost • $250 is spent for each document recreation But on the brighter side, Ernst & Young have found that document management can: • Triple document processing capacity • Reduce labor time and resources required by 50% • Provide immediate access to decision-critical data • Reduce document storage space by 80% • Provide fail-safe security. Why is document management so important? Research by Gartner has shown that information is doubling every 2.5 years. Organizations now maintain 30 times more data than they did in 1999. Not convinced yet? The pages per employee increase 10% annually. HFS 132.45 (records) Takes on a New Look…. Skilled nursing facility state regulations were made available in their final format this past October. As anticipated from the proposals, portions of HFS 132.45 were deleted. The deletions involve HIM departmental functions. All record content items remain the same. Deleted were explicit procedural items relating to the availability of records, organization of records, indexes, record maintenance, completion, storage and record destruction. How will this impact HIM departments? It may warrant revamping a few policy and procedures relating to timeframes. For example, I may be tempted to take out the 60 day timeframe for closure after discharge from my policy and replace it with “records will be closed after discharge within a timely manner”. Otherwise, for direction on these items HIM’ers should automatically turn toward HIM professional practice standards for guidance. HIM professional practice standards address how to handle departmental functions. In addition, we need to remember that federal regulation for clinical records reflect that the facility must maintain clinical records on each resident in accordance with accepted professional standards and practices that are—complete, accurately documented, readily accessible, and systematically organized. Federal regulations again tell us to look toward HIM practice standards for guidance. How will this impact HIM’ers? At first I felt it would have a negative impact, but in turn it may be positive. As HIM’ers with knowledge of professional practice standards our role becomes more valuable to skilled nursing facilities as they will look toward us, the HIM professional, to give them guidance in the area of record management. This e-mail was sent to you by www.whima.org. WHIMA respects its members' Internet privacy. Update your Membership Profile or E-mail Address. If you prefer not to receive informational e-mails regarding WHIMA and the Link newsletter, send an e-mail with the subject line Remove to Sandy Bissen and include your full name and member ID number (if applicable) in the text. Please allow a few days for processing of your request. |
The 2008 Annual Conference is scheduled for April 30 and May 1-2, 2008 at the Osthoff Resort in Elkhart Lake. Take part in the "magic", check out the resort and make your plans now for the conference. For a sneak preview of the program click here Sneak Preview 2008 Annual Conference Program Save the Date!
Attend the 2008 Annual Business Meeting at the Osthoff Resort in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin on May 1, 2008. This is your opportunity to hear about WHIMA activities and ask questions of Board members and Team Leaders. |
