Health Information Technician Essay

Could you imagine working as a EMT and not knowing what could happen at anytime that you are on the job. As you can tell this job is in very high demand, people are in need of people to run emergency vehicles. Emergency Medical Technicians have been in need since the 1960s, Emergency Medical Technicians have to go through extensive training and meet education requirements to be able to do this job. There are many different things that Emergency Medical Technicians do while on the job, there are also very many levels to being an Emergency Medical Technicians.

Inspect and manage medical records to insure that the correct information is being used for the right patient.

Some other certifications available are: CPC (Certified Professional Coder), COC (Certified Outpatient Coder), CIC (Certified Impatient Coder),

A HIM professional is trained in the most up-to-date health information and technology, they are trained to work in any healthcare setting, are vital to daily operations, management of health information, and electronic health records. The job of a HIM professional is to ensure that patient records are accurately kept, complete, and private. Being a skilled HIM professional tells an employer that a person is organized and will have the right information on hand when and where it is needed while maintaining the highest standards of data integrity, confidentiality, and security. Becoming a HIM professional means that the professional is versatile and has the skill set to incorporate clinical, information technology, leadership, and management

“Dedicated to enhancing professional and personal growth for allied health professionals, American Medical Technologists (AMT) awards the Registered Medical Assistant (RMA) credential to qualifying individuals.

There are two main measures of medical underservice in the U.S., health professional shortage areas and medically underserved areas and some special need populations. Both measures require communities to apply for designation. These designations allow the government to target resources to those determined to be most in need (Colwill and Cultice, 2003).

The role and responsibilities of a Health Information Technician (HIT) also known as a Medical Records Technician include maintaining the medical information system of a healthcare facility in a manner consistent with medical, administrative, ethical, legal, and regulatory requirements. Responsibilities include organizing and coding patient records, recording information on patient records, the gathering of statistical and research data, monitoring information to ensure confidentiality and medical coding for billing purposes. Technicians communicate on a regular basis with physicians and other healthcare professionals to obtain information and clarify diagnosis. This is one of the only fields in the healthcare system that you will not have

Joining the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) benefits individuals and distinguishes them apart from others. AHIMA labels individual’s as competent, knowledgeable and committed to the association through quality healthcare delivery and quality information.

Health information technology (HIT) involves trading of health information in an electronic format to advance health care, reduce health expenditures, improve work efficiency, decrease medication errors, and make health care more accessible. Maintaining privacy and security of health information is crucial when technology is involved. Health information exchange plays an important role in improving the quality and delivery of health care and cost-effectiveness. “There is very little electronic information sharing among clinicians, hospitals, and other providers, despite considerable investments in health information technology (IT) over the past five years” (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2014, p. 1).

Billing and coding specialists, who are also known as health information technicians, are an integral part of the health care system. They are the ones designated to handle the billing and coding system which can be very complex. These professionals are trained to organize the health records of a hospital's patient. It involves the translation of a patient's medical history and diagnosis into clinical codes which are used to process insurance claims. They can be found in the hospitals, outpatient care centers, insurance and coverage providers.

An Electronic Health Record is a computerized form of a patient’s medical chart. These records allow information to be readily available to authorized providers during a patient’s encounter with the healthcare system. These systems do not only contain medical histories, current medications and insurance information, they also track patients’ diagnoses, treatment plans, immunization dates, allergies, radiology images and lab tests/results (source). The fundamental aspect of EHRs is that they are able to share a patient’s information quickly across service lines and even between different healthcare organizations. Information is at the fingertips of lab techs, primary care physicians, pharmacies, clinics, etc. The

The American Health Information Management Association is a body of health information professionals that majorly concerns itself with the improvement of the quality of medical records (Harman 104). These

Privacy policies can be particularly hard for an HIE to deal with .There are efforts such as the government's Connect project that provide

Health Care Information Management is something that is becoming extremely popular. Health Care Information Management Systems are computer systems that keep patient files, protect the security of the patient’s information, and keep everything more organized than what can be accomplished by individual people. Employment in this field is expected to grow faster than it has been. Jobs for this field include: Director HIM, Supervisor HIM Data Analyst, Auditor, Private Officer,

Keeping patients safe is essential in today’s health care system, but patient safety events that violate that safety are increasing each year. It was only recently, that the focus on patient safety was reinforced by a report prepared by Institute of medicine (IOM) entitled ” To err is human, building a safer health system”(Wakefield & Iliffe,2002).This report found that approx-imately 44,000 to 98,000 deaths occur each year due to medical errors and that the majority was preventable. Deaths due to medical errors exceed deaths due to many other causes such as like HIV infections, breast cancer and even traffic accidents (Wakefield & Iliffe, 2002). After this IOM reports, President Clinton established quality interagency