Blood pressure. Weight. Cholesterol.
These are just a few of the data points your health care team measures, collects, and records every time you visit them at a clinic, urgent care center, or hospital. Your heart rate, the medications you take and have taken, surgeries, and your personal concerns about your health are other pieces of data that need to be recorded.
Every piece of information needs to be accurate, up-to-date, and secure. That's where health information management comes in to play.
What is Health Information Management?
Health information management is a profession that has become increasingly in-demand over the past several years. State law requires health care providers to take special care of the records they keep on individual patients.
These records can include health history, diagnostic information, notes made by the health care provider, and more.
Nearly every state has its own laws that dictate how this data must be stored and kept secure. In addition, the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act requires that health care providers safeguard information to protect the privacy of their patients.
Since more and more health care providers are starting to store their patients' medical records electronically, the need for health information managers has increased.
What Does a Health Information Manager Do?
As a health information manager, you will be responsible for organizing and managing the data collected about patients and their health care needs.
Your duties will include working to ensure that all medical data collected is accurate and timely, which includes regularly reviewing data collected by doctors, nurses, and other members of the health care team. You'll need to understand how health care providers use the information they collect so you can verify its appropriateness.
In addition, you will be responsible for making sure that the right people—doctors, nurses, therapists—are able to easily access the data when they need to do so—and that others are not able to access the information.
While you won't be providing direct patient care, you will be working closely with the people who do—and you will be considered a critical part of the team. In fact, health information managers are vital to the success of any hospital, clinic, nursing home, or company that records and stores patient data. Without a health information manager to ensure that data is accurate and secure, an organization could compromise patients' safety and privacy as well as put itself at risk of receiving large financial penalties from the federal government for any data security breaches.
Where do Health Information Managers Work?
There are 200,000 people working in health information management (according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics) and that number is only expected to grow. The bureau says that jobs for people working in health information management are expected to increase by 15 percent between now and 2024, which is much faster than the national average.
Most of these professionals (38 percent) work in state, local, and private hospitals or the offices of physicians (21 percent) who specialize in a specific area of care (according to the United States Department of Labor). Other professionals work for nursing homes, companies that conduct medical research, universities, and private companies involved in health care.
How do You Become a Health Information Manager?
Health information managers require specialized training to learn the skills and gain the knowledge that is necessary to succeed in the real world.
You will need to combine knowledge of medicine, management, finances, information technology, and the law. Your first step toward launching your career is to enroll in a health information management program at a college or university.
You will study electronic health records, pathophysiology, pharmacology, health information law, ethics, and statistics. You will also learn how to use the powerful databases that health care providers employ to store and manage data. In addition, you will have opportunities to study human anatomy, physiology and communications. All of these courses—and more—are designed to help you hit the ground running and immediately be an asset to your employer.
How Do You Start Your Health Information Manager Education?
If you are ready to start moving toward a rewarding career as a health information manager, connect with ECPI University today. You will learn about how you can earn your degree in Associate of Applied Science degree in Health Science with a Concentration in Health Information Management in less than two years. It could be the Best Decision You Ever Make!
ECPI University was the best decision i ever made...
— Dawson Melody® (@Itz_Weezy_D) December 15, 2015
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Gainful Employment Information – Health Information Management - Associate’s
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