The Perfect Day

Everyone has a vision of the perfect day. Sunshine blue skies at the beach. Fresh powder on the slopes for spring skiing. A quiet afternoon with a favorite book. A day at the spa for pampering and indulgence. The list goes on and everyone has their own vision of what that day might look like. For me, the perfect day would be the one where the following takes place:

Morning: Healthcare documentation professionals everywhere have joined forces and now more than 200,000 have found common ground and been heard clearly above the noise and chatter of healthcare reform. They have united and have secured their future as professionals who have for years contributed tremendous value to patient care. This profession was long thought of as adding cost, but it has come to light that this documentation sector adds exceptional value to accuracy and completeness in a patient's medical reports. It is what we do, and yet so few people know it or appreciate our knowledge. They say "we type what is dictated." Anyone who has ever done this job knows it is so much more than that. Until we as a profession can put aside the pointing fingers at problems, placing blame, quit focusing exclusively on pay first, measure our contributions and begin to demonstrate the value add, we cannot experience that perfect day. Are you ready for that perfect day? I say it is long overdue. No matter how tough we think we have it, we don't have to look very far to see those in much worse circumstances. We have time to recast our future, but we cannot do it alone. Let's work together towards that perfect day.

Afternoon: The next part of my perfect day would be the evening news stating that scientists around the world have confirmed that we have finally slowed and turned back the clock on global warming. The news report would go on saying....Evidence now shows that so many people continue to do little things to make a big difference and there is now solid proof that the polar ice is once again gaining mass and polar bears are making a strong recovery. Fewer species are facing extinction and our timeline for climate change has dramatically improved. And with alternative energy sources and creative technologies, there is an excellent chance we can turn this around completely. Now that would be a perfect end to a most excellent day!

This week, we will celebrate Earth Day on 4/22 and National Arbor Day on 4/24. As we think about the things we can do to improve our world, let us also think about how we sustain our professional world and move it forward for a better career and one that brings not only job satisfaction at the end of each day but the promise for even better days ahead where we embrace new technologies and put our expertise to work. Now wouldn't that really be a perfect day? Be part of the solution - take action - talk to your employer today about the tremendous value you provide every day!

What Tomorrow Holds

We talk about an evolving profession and evolving our careers in healthcare documentation's future. One that works within EHRs and can utilize our expertise and critical thinking skills combined with our command of the language of medicine in a relevant and contributing way. Trying to look into the future and see what these jobs might look like is not an easy task but it is one that we must begin to contemplate to help us with this evolution and to identify the matching of a very extensive skillset with demands of a system that many of us have not yet seen.

One of the most important things for us to do is to stay involved. Stay connected, continue to network and stay informed on the technology that will form the basis of electronic healthcare delivery. Again, I am convinced that there is a great future ahead for all of us with the knowledge that we have as point and click will not adequately capture the entire patient's story. But what else might we do? Speech recognition is a great tool and can help create tools to use for those who don't want to transcribe in the traditional manner.

The evolution as I see it is one based on getting far more closer to real-time documentation. This is something that I wrote about in a futuristic article in Plexus, July 2008, called Headlines: 2018. The future gets closer everyday and when we try to imagine what that future might look like, we can begin to imagine how we are a big part of the solution to help our colleagues in HIM pull all the parts together. Quality of the entire EHR - dictated reports, clinician entered reports, we can ensure quality and content completeness in all parts of the record. Let's think of chart completion or as we called it in the old days, chart analysis or chart deficiencies done remotely? How about chart auditing done remotely? What if those facilities who use scribes utilized a technology like Blue Tooth and enabled this process to be done just as fast, but remotely?

The challenge is on - let's find those new future jobs and let's step up to fill them. What are your thoughts about how we can help bridge the gap to the allied health professions worker shortage?

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Hope your day for the "wearin' of the green" has been enjoyable from the top of the mornin' to the wee hours of the night. As this day is coming to a close, I wanted to get a quick update out here before I leave for Sacramento, CA to attend the AHDI-West inaugural meeting.

This is truly an exciting time for this new regional that combines the states of Oregon, California, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Hawaii and Alaska. It's a great concept that originated from the members and holds the promise to create synergies and combine these areas and considerable resources to create a greater strength and sense of purpose. You can check out their new website here .

Another bit of news is that the MTIA conference is right around the corner, April 22-25 and don't forget the Quality Summit will take place on April 25. Check out this link to get the scoop from the press release on this important summit.

Last week, I attended an industry advisory meeting in Atlanta and was really inspired by the content and ideas that were exchanged during this meeting. The attendees were HIM professionals, IT experts, leaders in the healthcare documentation industry with open collaboration on what challenges lie ahead. It becomes clearer to me with every passing day that we have tremendous opportunities to do more and provide more support and solutions for the healthcare documentation sector. I encourage everyone to consider what else we might do, how else might we contribute to help solve the growing demand for timely, quality, complete information for patient care. In the rush to solve the challenge of healthcare reform, we must not hastily forget the skills and expertise the knowledge worker can bring as part of the solution to this growing problem. Technology alone will never be the answer. Technology in the hands of well-trained experts is what can really make the difference.

Share your ideas - How can medical transcriptionists bring more in terms of solutions for healthcare docuementation? What else might we do with the advent of the EHR?

The Health Story Project

Have you heard of the Health Story Project? Have you heard about CDA4CDT? Perhaps you have heard about the +20 billion dollars (and likely more) set aside for health IT as part of the stimulus package for economic recovery and healthcare reform? Maybe you have heard that the EHR is targeted for nationwide implementation by a goal date of 2014? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then every MT will want to learn more about the Health Story Project. Here's why.

One of the objections to narrative text in the EHR is that it is not searchable or minable for data research. Because currently, it is in free-form without an established standards and formats it does not lend itself well to easy tagging for search processes (more). A shift to templated systems or point and click technology alone cannot capture the relevant details and unique circumstances of each patient admission. Something that we can all agree on is that the potential to improve patient care, reduce costs, eliminate redundancy in testing and to gain efficiencies via e-prescribing absolutely exists by migrating to electronic records. The best way to do that and keep the details present, to ensure that DRGs continue to be optimized and to ensure that patient safety comes first, Health Story provides that process.

The Health Story Project by way of CDA4CDT (clinical documentation architecture for common document types) is a process that allows narrative text to be translated in the EHR as searchable, retrievable text. Since more than 80% of physicians prefer dictation and transcription as the method of choice for documenting patient encounters, this process is the way to ensure that the continuation of dictation and transcription will be able to deliver the structured text research outcomes while providing a level of granularity and detail that can only be captured through the dictation medium.

What you can do? Urge your MTSO employer to join the Health Story Project and the many MTSOs who are using this process to enable full functionality of hospital EHR systems while still allowing physicians to record patient encounters in the method that is their preference and the one that allows them more patient care time. Don't work for an MTSO? No problem, talk about it at your hospital - and if your hospital outsources any of their work, ask them to include a request for CDA4CDT in their RFPs.

The time has come for us to take an active role in our future and beginning to have conversations about relevant strategies to help ensure your success and career are here today. Click here to learn more from a physician's perspective.

Going Green/The Economy/Evolving Together

People everywhere are doing it. They are finding ways to conserve and move our world back to better health. It all ties in with good stewardship and sustainability. We know that we want to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Steps are being taken to develop alternative energy sources and if each of us recycles, makes fewer trips in the car, and reduces waste, we all save money and resources in the long run. Make sure you absolutely have to have a paper copy before you hit "print." Plant a tree and bring more oxygen to offset the CO2 impact. click here to see how you can participate. Little things can make a big difference and the things we do in our home CAN help change the world. For more info click here

Betty Honkonen wrote an awesome article for Advance that is available for your reading pleasure by following this link. click here In this article Betty points out how important it is to stay connected in economical downturns. The other compelling point that is critical to success in times like these where changes in healthcare are happening rapidly, is to remember the most important investment you make when times are tight is the investment you make in yourself. Keep yourself at the top of your profession. Staying connected in a networking mode to those who are leading the evolution of these changes can make a difference, particularly if you find yourself in an organization that is downsizing or eliminating certain technologies all together.

Layoffs are happening everywhere read more and no business sector is exempt. The investment in your credential, and in your association should be a priority for you most especially at this time. When employers are selective about who gets hired, make sure that you set yourself apart with a credential that tells the employer that continuing education is important to you. We have a community of solutions and no one should have to face these challenging times alone AHDI. The community of MTs has far more in common in today's evolving healthcare than ever before.

Fortunately the economic stimulus bill has finally passed and although this is a first step to financial recovery, jobs creations, and housing market stabilization, it will certainly take some time to get through it. As healthcare documentation continues to evolve, the actions we take collectively to create and establish careers that support this next evolution, will be much more impactful if everyone in this sector can find a way to work together toward that common goal. When we can as a unified profession emphasize the strengths and contributions we make to healthcare to those who who are making decisions, demonstrate how the knowledge worker's inclusion in healthcare's future is necessary, we then will have an opportunity to play a significant role in the EHR that is absolutely on the way.

Career Step adopts Interfix KB

Exciting News: On January 7th, 2009, Career Step announced that it has incorporated the Interfix Knowledge Base (KB) www.interfix.biz into it's curriculum. This health information tool is designed to help students as well as practitioners with a robust search process to quickly find medical terminology, lab values, pharmaceutical words with dosing and diagnosis information, and information in the AHDI (Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity) Book of Style 3rd edition. It also contains a physician database that allows search methods based on different criteria. You can search by location, specialty, name, etc. This comprehensive tool provides state of the art search parameters including wild card searching and the one of the best things about the Interfix KB is that unlike random web searches, this information is validated and accurate.

One other significant advantage that this application provides is electronic-based membership to AHDI. This gives the user access to the professional association for healthcare documentation and opens the door to a great future through information, educational processes, credentialing opportunities and networking.

This research tool will assist medical transcriptionists verify the information they seek in a single step rather than having to search and check various locations for trustworthy information. This represents remarkable progress and revolutionizes previous lookup procedures.

Read the full story by following this link: http://www.careerstep.com/blog/?p=307

Holiday Wishes

Happy New Year! I sure hope this has been a good holiday season for you. This past year has not been a great year economically for many of us, but it will certainly be one that we will all remember. We have an opportunity with each new year to commit ourselves fully to making each New Year better than the one before. It is up to each of us to seize the opportunity for change and take action to bring about that change. No one can make us get exercise, go on a diet, finish that degree, or get involved in a worthy cause except ourselves. The life we lead is the one we live and the degree to which it is fulfilling is in our own hands to either accept it or choose to improve some part of it (unless of course you are fortunate enough to be living the perfect life - LOL).

So as 2009 begins with our New Year's resolutions and commitments for a better year, I will start with a few commitments of my own:

1. To lead my association, profession and coworkers with the highest standard of ethics, integrity and values that ensure that our actions and work is the finest it can be.
2. To take active steps that advance our profession bringing visibility to the important work we do in relationship to quality of documentation, quality patient care and safety, and quality of life.
3. To seek to continually listen and learn so that the foundation of wisdom (knowledge) is at the basis of all decision-making.
4. To do all within my power to educate and develop awareness with those I meet about the fragileness of our planet and to instill a desire in others to do more to help ensure a vibrant earth for many generations to come.

So what if we were all to take a really good long look at our profession? Where is it going if we keep doing what we have always done? Then what if we took a look at the future of healthcare documentation? How/where do we fit in? Finally, what we can do to make our own personal future brighter and filled with the maximum potential? If you were to do this and you decided that we could make a difference by being present, by taking personal action to ensure our own success, then I can't WAIT to work with you to make it happen in 2009! Together we can do this! Yes we can!