Saturday, September 10, 2011

5 Helpful Tips for Health Information Managers

Health information managers have their hands full when it comes to doing their job efficiently. There is always something that needs to be done and they have a fantastic arsenal of support personnel to get the job accomplished. Health Information Management is one of the 20 fastest growing careers in the United States today. There is such a need for more Health Information Managers that it puts pressure on the quality of a job that you are doing. We have come up with a few pointers that could help ease some of the pressure off of your position.

5 Helpful Tips for health Information Managers

1. Do away with paper whenever possible – Having things on paper makes for more difficulties finding them later. Anything that can be put in to the computer or sent in an email should be put there. It is easier for every one to file information on their desktop in their own way and then retrieve it when it is needed. By moving everything to electronic files instead of paper is very green. You are helping out the environment by saving trees.

2. Look for areas in everyday duties that require redundancy of action and eliminate them. If the same information needs to be put in multiple places find a way to link the two data bases so that it only has to be done once. This will save time and it will also create less error. If the information is entered incorrectly in one spot but not the other, there is no way for the computer to double check itself and multiple errors could result because of the redundancy required.

3. Make sharing information easy. Generally in a place of hospital or clinical setting multiple departments need to have access to the same information. You need to break down any barriers with your information that you legally can to keep the flow of information going around the entire organization. It would eat up a lot of your personnel’s time if they had to keep retrieving information for someone else.

4. Know all the legal issues associated with the information you are managing. There are laws and guidelines in place to protect patient’s information. President Clinton signed in HIPPA to protect patient’s electronic health information. Be sure that you are complying with these regulations to save yourself difficulties down the road. You would not want your information in the wrong hands, be careful with someone else’s.

5. Make good use of the staff around you. These people are their to do their job too. Use them for their expertise and abilities to make your job go smoother.

Mare Lisa usually blogs about health-related topics and is very knowledgeable about masters in health informatics degree programs.