The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center (OSUWMC) is being honored as this year’s prestigious American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) Grace Award recipient. The OSUWMC was presented with the AHIMA Grace Award at the association’s 88th Annual Convention and Exhibit in Baltimore.
Named for AHIMA’s founder Grace Whiting Myers, the Grace Award honors healthcare delivery organizations that demonstrate outstanding and innovative approaches to using health information management (HIM) as a way to deliver high-quality care to patients. AHIMA has presented the award since 2012.
“It is an honor for our organization to receive the AHIMA Grace Award,” said Andrew Thomas, MD, MBA, chief medical officer, Ohio State Health System, and senior associate vice president, Ohio State Health Sciences. “The leadership and dedicated staff in our Medical Information Management department is committed to the highest quality of health information to improve our patients’ lives. Our team embraces new technology and approaches to managing health information in support of patient care, teaching and research.”
Kristin Nelson, MS, RHIA, program manager, medical information management, accepted the award today.
The OSUWMC was recognized for its expansion from data collection to analysis to provide more effective and evidence-based patient care. By using data already collected in its electronic health record (EHR), the OSUWMC biomedical informatics department was able to develop, implement and evaluate methods and applications for predictive modeling of medical data. The organization’s HIM staff assisted with these efforts by helping to define data sources, and making sure identified predictors were captured in the record, and documented conditions were coded accurately. By acting as the “interpreter” between clinicians and data analysts, and liaisons to the leadership decision-making process, the OSUWMC HIM professionals ultimately enhanced patient care.
The OSUWMC was also recognized by Lifeline of Ohio Organ Procurement in 2016 for its work in the organ donation process. The HIM department collaborated with other departments to ensure appropriate access to health information to match donor information to a recipient, and expedite the process of getting the right organ to the right recipient.
By putting its HIM department in leadership positions, the OSUWMC has positively impacted EHR implementation, health information exchange, clinical documentation improvement (CDI), and patient safety indicators review. These contributions are most visible through a robust CDI program that saw improvements in capture and query response rates, as well as a 40 percent improvement in patient safety events and significant improvement in CMS quality programs including Value Based Purchasing.
Through its patient portal, the OSUWMC has empowered more than 176,000 patients to take ownership of their healthcare by creating a personal health record, viewing test results, requesting medication refills, reviewing health and account summaries and directly communicating with their providers.
“The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center is an exemplary organization that is effectively using health information to improve patient care,” said AHIMA CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon, MBA, RHIA, CAE, FACHE, FAHIMA. “In numerous initiatives, their HIM professionals are leading the way to getting the right information to the right place at the right time. AHIMA is pleased to honor them with this year’s Grace Award.”
Award evaluation criteria included how organizations support AHIMA’s 2014-2017 strategic plan by integrating HIM throughout their organization to use and analyze healthcare data, serve as a leader in their organization and community, develop and grow information governance, support and contribute to innovation, and empower consumers in their own healthcare.
AHIMA also recognized Texas Health Resources (THR) with an honorable mention for its important role in advancing the use of analytics to improve patient care, promote information governance, and bring departments together to care for the patient in a holistic manner. THR is one of the largest faith-based, nonprofit health systems in the United States and the largest in North Texas in terms of inpatients and outpatients served.
This year’s Grace Award committee includes: Tracie Allen, MS, RHIA, FACHE, MAJ, MS, US Army, Chief, Mission Support, United States Transportation Command; Mark Dietz, RHIA, President, Dietz Consulting; Jane D. Duckert, RHIA, MA, Director, University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics; Diane E. Ferry, RHIA, MS, President/CEO, Star-Med, LLC; Marcia F. Johnson, RHIA, MBA, MPA; Stephanie J. Luthi-Terry, MA, RHIA, CHPS, FAHIMA, Director, Enterprise HIM Integration/eHIM Business Solutions, Health Information Management, Allina Health; Diane Premeau, MBA, RHIA, RHIT, CHP, CHC, Director, Health Information Management/Privacy Officer, Daughters of Charity Health System/O’Connor Hospital; Steven J. Steindel, PhD, FACMI; Nicole F. Walker, RHIA, Associate Director, Health Information Management, MD Anderson Cancer Center; and DeGloria S. Williams, RHIA, Director of Health Information Management, Children’s Medical Center of Dallas.
