CIOs and HIM directors are laying the groundwork for the ICD-10 transition that will occur on Oct. 1, 2013. These two departments will be joining other organizational leadership to perform critical risk assessments of what systems will be affected and extensive ICD-10 training programs for clinicians and coders, all the while overcoming common challenges including budget, bandwidth, and human resources. As many have asserted, the technical issues of the ICD-10 transition are not that great; it's the training of clinicians and coders that will be the significant obstacle.
In this podcast Jennifer Prestigiacomo, HCI associate editor, will be speaking with Bob Schwyn, a principal at Aspen Advisors, about an ICD-10 assessment his firm did with 450-bed East Jefferson General Hospital in New Orleans. In 2002, East Jefferson became the first hospital in Louisiana to earn the prestigious Magnet Status for nursing excellence from the American Nurses Credentialing Center. In 2006, the organization was one of only a handful of hospitals able to raise their standards high enough to earn the distinction of being renewed as a Nurse Magnet Hospital. Here are excerpts from that conversation.