Q: What's a typical workday like for you?
A: I have about 130 full-time equivalent employees who work to assure the completeness, quality and accessibility of health information. We help assure that the right information is available for the right person at the right time. This information drives patient care, billing, reporting and statistics. We make sure we have the authority to release the patient information and that we release it to the right people. We also help physicians with transcription; convert health information into diagnostic and procedure codes for studies, billing and statistics; and collect data for public reporting and research. Most information is kept electronically, but we also manage the remaining paper record.
Q: How does your role fit into the bigger healthcare picture?
A: We make sure that we have good quality health information, which is used for patient care, billing, research, education and reporting purposes.
Q: Who do you interact with during the course of the day?
A: I interact with other managers and directors as well as my staff of coders, transcriptionists, clerks and release-of-information staff.
Q: Why did you become a healthcare information manager?
A: I knew I liked healthcare but I didn't want to do direct patient care. When I found out about health information management, I decided this was a nice blend of business and healthcare.
