From financial to clinical information, data indisputably is everywhere--and now is the time for information governance for the healthcare industry, Lynne Thomas Gordon (pictured), CEO of the American Health Information Management Association, writes in a post to iHealthBeat.
The goal, Gordon says, is to make sure all information resources being generated support the business goals of an organization. Information governance needs to be supported by top leaders of an organization, support care coordination and also meet long-term needs.
Information governance is about proactively managing information--the information healthcare organizations are collecting, producing and maintaining in multitudes every day," Gordon says. "Throughout the health care ecosystem, there is an increasing need to ensure that information is trustworthy, appropriately accessible, accurate and actionable."
Tips from Gordon and AHIMA on developing an information governance program include:
- Create a compelling business case
- Identify needs and pain points
- Understand your organization's long-term goals and strategy and define the purpose of the program. The work plan, she says, should define measures of success and funding.
- Build leadership support organization-wide
At AHIMA's annual meeting in Atlanta last fall, Meryl Bloomrosen--the association's vice president of thought leadership, practice excellence and public policy--called the mismatch between patients and their clinical data a "serious and growing patient safety issue."
Last summer, AHIMA and the College of Healthcare Information Management (CHIME) announced a partnership to work together on information governance and standards. "AHIMA and CHIME both believe that the effective use of health information leads to better healthcare and outcomes for patients," Gordon said of that partnership.
To learn more:
- see the post in iHealthBeat