President's Column

HIMAA extends our congratulations to Sue Walker and Maryann Wood from the Queensland University of Technology for approval recently received from the University Academic Board to commence the Bachelor in Health Information Management course from semester 1 2013. This is fantastic news as once again HIM professionals will be graduating and entering the workforce in Queensland.

Without a supply of HIM graduates there is a threat that health information management work will be done by people who are untrained, who have not been exposed to health information management principles and who don’t have the foundation skills and knowledge to fill health information management roles to meet the emerging demands on health information management.

With a new bachelor degree also close to approval at the University of Western Sydney for commencement in 2013, now is a good time to encourage people you know who are thinking of tertiary study to consider enrolling in one of the health information management accredited courses around the country. More information on currently accredited courses is on the HIMAA website.

I have recently read the final draft of the Health Workforce Australia, Health Information Workforce Study. The report, soon to be released, grapples with the definition and boundaries of what the health information workforce is and therefore how it can be measured and what the drivers are for demand and supply. The study has been a preliminary effort to better define and understand the health information workforce, in preparation for more traditional and analytical workforce studies into the future. As the HIMAA representative on the study’s Expert Reference Group, I have been advocating to ensure Health Information Managers, Clinical Coders and others working in the health information management field have been appropriately represented in the study findings and analysis.

If you haven’t done so already, please consider coming to the HIMAA conference in October on the Gold Coast. It will be great to see you there!

Sallyanne Wissmann 
President 
Health Information Management Association of Australia (HIMAA)

 

CEO Column

This Month.... 

• HIMAA National Conference 2012  
• Education Committee Appointments
• Competencies Survey
• QUT Course
• Call for Abstracts – IFHIMA Congress 2013
• Report: HIMAA (NSW) PD Event
• Comments Invited on NHPA Draft Strategic Plan

HIMAA National Conference 2012 
The full conference program is now all but confirmed. The updated conference program, including links to abstracts of invited papers, and details of the majority of keynote speakers is available HERE.

Conference registrations are flowing in at a great rate now, which indicates that people are recognizing the terrific quality and value of this year’s conference. In fact demand has been so strong over the past week or two that we have decided to extend the deadline for “early bird” registrations to 17 August, to ensure that everyone who wants to register at this rate has the opportunity to do so.

HIMAA has negotiated a discount room rate with the conference venue. If delegates wish to obtain the best “early bird” room rate at the venue they must book their room prior to 28 August through by clicking HERE. The discount rate is only available through this site, which is also accessible via the online conference registration site available HERE.

Group bookings are also available at the discount rate through Kimberley Moon (Ph: 07 5592 9732 E: Kimberley.moon@marriotthotels.com). Be sure to advise Kimberley that you are booking for delegates to the HIMAA 2012 Conference otherwise the special rate will not be offered.

HIMAA members who register for the full conference and book accommodation at the Surfers Paradise Marriott Resort and Spa will be entered into a lucky draw to be held at the conference for two prizes:

Prize 1: 100% reimbursement of the conference registration fee. 
Prize 2: 50% reimbursement of the conference registration fee.

Education Committee Appointments 
Catherine Perry and Mitchell Jesson recently resigned from the HIMAA Education Committee. Catherine, in particular, had been a long serving member of this committee. HIMAA extends its thanks to Catherine and Mitchell for their contributions. Catherine’s and Mitchell’s replacements on the committee are Margie Luke and Jen Lee; welcome.

Competencies Survey 
The HIM Entry Level Competencies field survey has now been distributed. All members who received notice of the survey are encouraged to respond as this is an extremely important document that aims to reflect the future educational needs of the profession.

QUT Course 
The QUT School of Public Health and Social Work is pleased to announce that the Bachelor of Health Information Management (PU51) has now been approved to run from 1st semester 2013. Year 12 students can apply through the Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre (QTAC), mature age and non-year 12 students can get information about enrolment HERE.

A copy of the information flyer about the degree is available here. Additional copies can be obtained from Sue Walker (s.walker@qut.edu.au) or Maryann Wood (mt.wood@qut.edu.au). Sue and Maryann would also be happy to respond to any enquiries.

Report: HIMAA (NSW) PD Event 
Hospitality and enthusiasm were in abundance on Friday 27 July, 2012 at the latest professional development seminar of HIMAA (NSW). The staff at the University of Western Sydney welcomed us to their first class facilities on the Blacktown Hospital campus. Simultaneously, the registrants’ active discussions, questions, networking and evaluation questionnaires highlighted their ongoing support for their state branch.

Maria Stephanou and Shayne Small from the NSW Health RTO have now completed their state road show and the coding project has accepted initial students. They encouraged NSW Health staff to enrol in their Health Administration Cert IV course. Staff are eligible to receive ‘recognition of prior learning’ for experience and previous coding studies.

The School of and Computing and Mathematics, University of Western Sydney, have taken their Health Information Manager colleagues ‘under their wing’ and proposed a Bachelor of ICT (HIM). Dr Joanne Curry, Director Academic Program - UG ICT, Health Informatics Research, School of Computing and Mathematics and Vera Dimitropoulos, Executive Manager, National Centre for Classification in Health, have worked tirelessly in their own time to develop the proposed curriculum. If the University shines a green light for this course, and it receives HIMAA accreditation, first year students can enrol in 2013 and second year students can enrol in the second year subjects in the same year!

Activity Based Funding (ABF) is the current buzz title across Australia and no less in NSW. Sharon Smith (previously an Occupational Therapist) is a very active member of the Task Force, NSW Ministry of Health, as well as performing two other casemix roles in the districts. Sharon outlined a serious strategy of HIMs, coders and finance staff working closely together to ensure accurate funding AND keeping HIMs in the forefront.

3M have released a dynamic tool to manage medico-legal requests. The software is called “ChartRelease” (copyright). Anne Irwin, an experienced HIM, demonstrated the system and provided an overview of its functions. Large hospitals, in particular, are receiving an ever-increasing number of medico-legal requests. This tool will provide an index of requests and produce graphs and charts to manage the outstanding requests and permit presentations to senior management.

The Seminar would not have been possible without the hard work of the HIMAA (NSW) Committee, Rose Wong at HIMAA, Ralph La Tella from HIMAA who supported the AV equipment, Amy Romly from The Coding Company and the sponsors. Kim Osborne, Secretary/Treasurer, deserves a special mention for wearing catering, registration, housekeeping and public relations hats. Seminars/workshops will be held in the near future in a city and a rural location.

Cassandra Jordan 
Professional Development Officer 
HIMAA (NSW) Committee

Comments Invited on NHPA Draft Strategic Plan 
Comments on the National Health Performance Authority’s draft Strategic Plan close on 8 August 2012. The draft Strategic Plan can be viewed, and feedback provided, at http://www.nhpa.gov.au. 

Until next month...

Bob Blue
CEO, HIMAA 
 
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NEWS IN BRIEF

AUS:  Some PCEHR bugs will be fixed after go-live, says NEHTA 
People with hyphens in their names had to wait for days to register for the personally controlled e-health record system, National E-Health Transition Authority chief Peter Fleming confirmed. Testing and remediation would be done after PCEHR features and functionalities were pushed live for the public to use online, according to Mr Fleming. "It's one of the reasons why we're slowly pushing this out into the market to have a look, address the problems immediately and that hyphen (issue) was well and truly fixed within days of being identified and made sure that that's appropriate so that's on the hyphen side," Mr Fleming told participants during a panel session yesterday at the 2012 Health Informatics conference in Sydney. The Australian

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