What is Health Information Management? Health Information Management professionals work mostly in the hospital system. They are the connectivity brokers in health information for healthcare providers treating the same patient, as well as healthcare managers and administrators who need to fund and plan for healthcare service provision.
If you're coming into a hospital or other health facility, They see that systems are in place that ensure you are seen when you need to, that your information is available in the right place at the right time, and that the hospital has quality data that can be reviewed to ensure best practices in place and services are provided effectively and efficiently. There are two key occupations that form the entry-level foundation of the profession. Health Information Manager, HIM. Clinical Coder, CC.
My role at the moment is working as an industry solutions director for a software company which entails me to travel around the world and helping organisations, health organisations understand where better value can be derived from their data systems and sources. I work as a classification analyst for a government agency that develops and maintains classification systems for services provided in public hospitals. I'm currently working as a clinical coder in a large private hospital. My duties are to code all inpatient episodes of care. Follow up on Dr. Coding queries as well as submit all data.
to the health funds and Department of Health every month. So I'm currently working as a clinical coder. I extract and translate clinical information from a patient's medical record and I apply alphanumeric codes in accordance to a specific classification set. I'm currently working as a clinical information manager at a metropolitan hospital in Sydney.
The role's really diverse. It enables me to be involved in different activities around the hospital such as requests from the executive that influence service delivery. business analytics and privacy legislation and medico-legal requests.
My current role within the HIM profession is a health information management trainee, so within this role I rotate through some hospitals within New South Wales Health and in a variety of departments such as performance monitoring, clinical coding, patient services and information as well as medical records. I'm the general manager of a company that provides contract clinical coders, auditors and health information managers in health facilities across Australia. What attracted me to the HRM profession was I wanted to do something health related but I didn't want to be responsible for someone's life and what's exciting about it is that the whole landscape of healthcare is changing with advancements of data management systems and medical advances. And having a better understanding of the disease and processes means that HIMs and coders are crucial in processing all of this information. What really excites me about being in the health information management profession is the opportunity to be able to have your...
hands in multiple projects. As the health information expert in the hospital, you're really able to give expert advice on areas of health information. The diversity really attracted me to the HIM profession.
There are so many different functions or aspects and professions that you can walk into with HIM, whether it's as a coder, as a manager, as a researcher. The health information profession excites me because we are able to combine technology and healthcare and provide access to the best of all the health services. accurate statistics.
With the move from paper-based medical records through to electronically stored patient information, there's so many more opportunities that have opened up for health information managers, and in particular coding. It means that we can code records remotely. So some of our senior coders actually work from home and they're coding records that are across the other side of Australia.
They're coding for that hospital. So it's really exciting times. What attracted me to the HIM profession is an exciting time to be a HIM as we move.
from more paper-based records to electronic records and using this electronic data to help inform decision-making for the hospital. A good HIM or clinical coder has to be highly organised, have attention to detail and has good interpersonal skills. I think someone that would make a good clinical coder or a health information manager would be someone that's really passionate about healthcare, that enjoys working in a dynamic environment and someone that enjoys working with professionals at all levels across the organisation.
What makes a good HIM would be someone who is willing to take risks, think outside the square and show strong leadership skills. A good clinical coder needs to have a high attention to detail in order to produce high levels of accuracy when they're sitting down coding a medical record. They need to have I have a passion for anything medical, so diseases and procedures, anything to do with the healthcare industry and most importantly have excellent medical terminology skills.
So the possibilities are you can go through the traditional route which is coding, education, auditing and management but then there's also been a huge demand for HIMs across different areas such as research. data analytics, information technology and so yeah there's definitely great opportunities. You can start in medical records, clinical coding and you can move on to becoming the manager of these departments including the performance unit and from here you can move on to more senior level.
of hospital management as well. So there's a huge range of career opportunities. You could work in education and educate other health information managers.
You could be a clinical coder. You could work with like e-health and kind of advancements in IT within the industry. You can specialise in privacy legislation or in business analytics. You can also work as a head of a department at a hospital or as an executive at a hospital or a local health district level. HIM plays a vital role because they maintain and manage health information systems and they ensure patient safety and quality data which in turn ensures quality healthcare.
The health information management profession is vital for healthcare because we get funding on our services based off evidence-based data. Additionally we need to maintain privacy of our patients. Also the way that we manage our health information impacts the patient's journey as well as the quality of health care that the service provides. HIMs are important to healthcare as we are the link between research, funding and planning of healthcare.
It is extremely important in healthcare. As the information we store and provide is used not only for ongoing patient care, but also for planning, research and funding. You are the data custodian. You are the person responsible also for... releasing all health information, you are the expert on health information and knowing what to do with it and what you can and can't do.
The HIM profession is critical to healthcare, particularly these days with lots of healthcare transformation or healthcare reforms across the globe. HIMs really understand and help to drive some of that change through the organisations. Health information managers are integral in keeping patient information safe and secure.
Health information managers are really well placed to be able to link all of the systems together. Health information is at the heart of healthcare. Health information is at the heart of the healthcare system. To find out more, please visit www.himaa.org.au.