By: WHIMA Delegates – President and Chief Delegate Heather Pinske, MBA, RHIA, President-Elect Bryanna Schoeffel, RHIA, Past President Taryn Brunner, RHIA, 3rd Year Director Amy Hoaglund, RHIA, and Alternate Delegate Wil Limp, MS, RHIA, FAHIMA
It was that time of year again when Health Information Professionals came together to represent their Component Association (CA) at the national level during the House of Delegates (HoD) meeting in Baltimore, Maryland. Delegates enjoyed lively discussions and learned more about AHIMA’s future.
Although AHIMA has experienced a financial loss like many organizations over the last few years, AHIMA has rebounded in investments. AHIMA’s mission focus continues to be education which is embedded throughout all they do. Micro-credentials have been created to help professionals stay current in our fast-paced healthcare environment. As demonstrated by the creation of these micro-credentials, AHIMA’s priority continues to be that all education meets professional standards while ensuring high quality, improving professionalism, and increasing education integrity to demonstrate we are leaders in this profession. A few topics presented at the conference rose to the top, artificial intelligence (AI) and patient literacy amongst many other educational sessions. The Health Information Professional’s (HIP) role in AI will be to ensure that we have trusted information at our fingertips. Patient literacy is directly impacted by Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) because it impacts health and health outcomes. As HIPs, we can bring more of this to light in an effort to improve patient safety and quality care. The future for us looks bright!
The HoD voted on bylaws that were shared with WHIMA a few weeks ago. We did receive feedback from members about the proposed bylaw changes, and we took that into account when voting and representing our membership. The keynote speaker alluded to the fact that we won’t know the impact of change until we make a change. Great changes take time.
The first amendment was approved allowing those outside of the US to choose a CA. If they don’t choose a CA, they will default to Professional – Global and receive benefits and resources directly from AHIMA. Please note there was no change in the process, but more concise language was added.
The second amendment proposed combining the Finance and Audit Committees, but this did not pass.
The third amendment which would allow the AHIMA Board of Directors to serve two 3-year terms, there was a motion to refer this back to the task force until the 2024 HoD meeting to allow time to develop the evaluation process and standards. The motion to postpone was approved.
We are confident that AHIMA will continue to equip, advocate, advance, and grow our profession.