Meet the Candidates: AHDI National Leadership Board (Post 1)
This will be the first of several questions I will be posting here in the Lounge to our National Leadership Board Candidates. Each day this week, I will pose a question to our candidates and provide them an opportunity to post a response via the comment area. Feel free to post followup questions to the candidates here, but please try to stick to the subject posted for the day. If you have other questions for the candidates, let us know at lsims@ahdionline.org.
Question for Day 1: Based on the state of both the industry and the association, what do you perceive AHDI’s current strategic priorities to be, and where, if anywhere, would you recommend a change or shift in priority?
Don't forget to join us for tonight's Meet the Candidates Webinar (Part 1). Register here.
Lea M. Sims, CMT, AHDI-F
Director of Professional Programs, AHDI
Question for Day 1: Based on the state of both the industry and the association, what do you perceive AHDI’s current strategic priorities to be, and where, if anywhere, would you recommend a change or shift in priority?
Don't forget to join us for tonight's Meet the Candidates Webinar (Part 1). Register here.
Lea M. Sims, CMT, AHDI-F
Director of Professional Programs, AHDI
I perceive AHDI's current strategic priorities to be first continuing our advocacy efforts for the requirement of the dictated narrative in the next phase of the meaningful use definition. As we all know, congress and America's priorities can also shift very quickly, and take different forms from one year to another. Like we have seen in this industry before, it sometimes takes awhile for everyone to realize what is actually important when it comes to healthcare documentation, and what works and does not work, etc. With that said, secondly, I feel that AHDI should continue to educate members on the new technology and evolving future roles. This will allow our members to remain relevant in the face of change no matter what direction the healthcare reform takes. In short, there is work involved with influencing those on the outside, and we should continue to press on that path. However, we can do a great deal at this time to prepare our industry for the changes that are currently taking place so that they can continue to stay employed and remain in the industry.
I believe the top priority for 2012 must be member, former member, and prospective member engagement. All of the strategic priorities we're pursuing are meaningless if we don't have the credibility of a substantial membership base as a foundation to build on. In conjunction with this focus, I believe we need to make a frank, realistic evaluation of our core membership demographic now and in the future; who is AHDI, really? Once we identify who our target audience is, we need to tailor our message and our methods to serve that group. Trying to be too many things to too many different target groups will dilute our effectiveness.
The second priority and one that must be pursued in parallel with the first, is to educate our members on the challenges posed to our profession by electronic medical record (EMR) systems. We must be thoroughly familiar with EMRs and be able to identify and communicate the roles healthcare documentation professionals can and should play in the EMR environment. In my opinion, the impact on our profession from speech recognition and offshore outsourcing will pale in comparison to what we're facing with EMRs, and we need to be armed with as much information as possible in order to meet the challenge effectively.
I believe that AHDI strategic priorities are tied between advocacy and education. We must continue to work with our legislators to ensure we are included at the table for EMR (electronic medical record) planning. Keeping our industry advocacy active will help keep us involved with The Health Story project, meaningful use initiatives and other important projects. We must ensure that our voice is heard and that the patient's complete health story, with the narrative, are kept in these projects.
At the same time, we need to continue to educate our industry about the new technology advances, new documentation requirements, etc. As we have done in the past, we need to incorporate these changes and look at all the potential opportunities that these items can offer our industry.
Tammy Moore, CMT, AHDI-F
Dictated narrative's and transcription can still qualify for meaningful use.
I believe our number one priority, as simplistic as it sounds, is that we reach out in a significant way to our membership and reach into our base to find new members. AHDI has to be presented in such a way as to be relevant and necessary to MTs so that they will see the need to become apart of something bigger.
The average MT is interested in "where the rubber meets the road." While advocacy, alliance, and education are extremely important, the MTs I talk to want to know about their future and specific steps to take to roll with the upcoming changes. I hear discouragement, fear, concern about quality, concern about the addition of offshore counterparts, frustration learning new platforms and processes related to speech draft editing etc. The MTs I have spoken with want to "feel" that AHDI is interactive and connecting with them. I believe AHDI's strategic goals are on target: however, I also believe we need to change our perception and strategy on how to reach our goals.
I am very excited to see what our new Chief Executive Officer — Nancy Brighindi brings to the table!
My feeling is that all of the priorities that have been set - Credentialing, Advocacy, Membership, Education and Governance - continue to be important and need to be vigorously pursued as we move forward. The HOD has worked tirelessly since the last ACE on all of the above initiatives and have come up with some great ideas, and, of course, we're moving closer towards our new structure being launched!
There has been a year-long focus for the first time on advocating for our members as evidenced by the monthly Legislative Issues Group meetings and of, course, our decision to work with the Dewey Square Group (DSG), culminating in the 2011 Advocacy Summit. The investment in DSG shows how important AHDI feels advocacy is to our sector. We need to continue to make our feelings known to those in the position to make decisions, on a continual basis. I also think we should consider partnering with more of the allied health professions such as AAPC (coding), AHIMA, physician groups and others because we all have a stake in keeping narrative as an option in the EHR development. The more voices we can gather in this regard, the better!
I have seen a great push for credentialing and education of MTs by AHDI as well as our component organizations and fully agree with keeping that effort going. I know there are many study groups and webinars being conducted and I applaud everyone involved in this effort!
Regarding membership, I think we need to brainstorm more about how to attract more members. This has been a perpetual problem and AHDI has tried many approaches to be attractive to MTs. It's a difficult problem to solve. Many MTs are not even aware we have an organization for them. I think we have to find new ways to reach them. I have seen a huge growth, however, in the number of AAPC (coding) members (an organization I belong to as a CPC) so perhaps we need to find out what they're doing to attract members. One position I know they have is that to use the coding credential you must be a member of their organization. I don't know if this would be the right move for us or not but perhaps that could be a topic of discussion for the future.
One problem I would like to see AHDI tackle is the gap for MTs between finishing school and getting a job. How can we help to bridge that gap from student to practitioner? We need to look for ways to help MTs with that transition.
Diane Warth, CMT, AHDI-F, CPC, RHIT
I believe the top 3 strategic priorities for AHDI need to center around Advocacy and Alliance Building, Credentialing and Education. Membership is vitally important to our association, but until we can reach those outside of our profession with our message, we are "preaching to the choir."
Our efforts at Advocacy and Alliance Building enables us to take our message to others outside our membership. Engage the lawmakers and policy makers, the HIT professionals, and healthcare providers and educate them about the vital role that we play in documentation of patient care and how this contributes to patient safety and quality patient care.
The education and when necessary, the re-education of our workforce where necessary is an absolutely essential if we are going to survive in this new world of the EHR and meaningful use.
Increased credentialing of our workforce is a means of demonstrating to others that we are professionals and we do possess the knowledge, experience and skills that are so essential to our role as a healthcare documentation specialist.
When we can get our message heard by the "outside communities" and changes start to occur as a result of those efforts, I think our ability to recruit and retain members will improve.
Ann Donnelly, MS, CMT, AHDI-F
I have been impressed with the progress AHDI has made towards credentialing, advocacy, standards development, and education. Although I agree that it is important to grow the membership and the credentialed workforce, I believe that advocacy and outreach to employers and the greater healthcare industry will make the difference and not direct recruitment of individual members. It's one thing to try and recruit transcriptionists by telling them we have this great organization and that its benefits are worth the investment, but it's something entirely different to have employers and the broader healthcare industry recommend membership and certification because they clearly respect AHDI and value the skillset that CMTs and RMTs bring to their organizations. The future is in collaboration and relationship building, and I think AHDI is on the right track by taking the lead in standards development and insuring the integrity of healthcare documentation. The current strategy illustrates that it's not us against the world, but rather, the world needs us and we are going to work together to make our voices heard and our expertise valued. By doing this, we build up the profession, and by building up the profession, we increase incentive for both MTs and their employers to join us in our efforts.
Jill Devrick, MPA
District IV Candidate
AHDI must continue to do a number of things. I wrote about this in 2009 and much of it remains true today - but with 2014 closer than it appears (like your side-view mirrors on your car).
We must make sure that narrative dictation/transcription remains a key component of patient records in the EHR. To achieve the goals of improved patient safety and better patient outcomes, this will be imperative. We need to continue to be a presence in DC and at the state level in advocacy - this is an avenue that will help us with the #1 imperative above.
Those who are creating the legislation around EHRs and meaningful use need to be aware of our contributions and how this key will help achieve the goals while hospitals and physician practices are being incentivized to short-cut documentation.
Membership is key. One of the things that concern most of us is the statement that AHDI is not doing anything for the working MT. This is so contrary to the goals of keeping transcription/editing IN the future, which is the core of our strategic initiatives. This is about jobs and new evolving jobs.
If AHDI were to remain silent and not be active in communicating with law-makers, collaborating with other associations and organizations who impact the changing environment of healthcare, what do you think might happen? Who would speak to the value transcriptionists bring to healthcare? Is it reasonable to conclude that one of the most critical components to all the goals to be achieved by implementing EHR technology promise could likely be overlooked if vendors succeed and they convince more groups to "eliminate their transcription costs" and put the entire responsibility on physicians to do all the documentation? Without more hours in the day, how will all those details and specifics be captured - details that will most definitely be needed for ICD-10?
We cannot afford to let this happen to MTs. It becomes apparent to me what that future would look like. So when it comes down to strategic initiatives, while on the surface, it may appear that these strategic targets don't directly impact the working MT, I would share that it directly impacts the ability of the working MT to keep working - maybe in a new job or an evolved process, but working and using their incredibly brilliant minds and expertise in clinical language that will always be needed in healthcare delivery.
AHDI currently recognizes 5 major strategic priorities: Credentialing, membership outreach, advocacy/alliance building, education, governance, and considering the state of the industry and the association, I think we must continue to make it our priority to move forward in each area. Is anyone more important than the other? To me they are so intertwined that we cannot move ahead in one without moving ahead in all.
We have a responsibility to the industry and to healthcare to show that we value education and learning new skills, and credentialing is simple an outward sign to the industry that we are professionals and serious about what we do. Membership is extremely important because we all need each other, as none of us has time to be all in all. Combining our strengths and weaknesses makes us a better association. Advocacy and alliance building helps others understand who we are, what we are, and how important we are.
I think we have to continue to aware of changes in the industry, we have to be flexible and willing to change within the association, and we have to be responsible to each other, and this may require change on our part at any given moment.
Martha Songer, RMT
District 3 candidate