AHDI Tool Kits – Impacting Professional Practices & Preparing for Future Roles
With the rapid evolution of emerging technologies reshaping how healthcare documentation is captured, secured, and repurposed, the need for transitional resources and practical guidelines that assist practitioners in preparing for and managing those changes has become important to both healthcare documentation professionals and the client providers for whom our industry provides its services. To that end, AHDI has developed several tool kit resources that address these evolving trends and the guidelines necessary to be “technology ready” in this sector.
This includes kits (below) that will help:
- MTs/HDSs understand and prepare for emerging roles in the EHR.
- MTs/HDSs to transition to contributory roles assisting the general public with PHR creation and maintenance.
- Providers to improve dictation practices that impact “SRT readiness” and ongoing quality data capture.
Note: Given the degree to which technology needs and requirements change, these tool kits may be updated frequently. Check back on a routine basis for updated and/or additional tool kits and information.
AHDI Tool Kits
Dictation Best Practices Tool Kit: This tool kit is designed to assist healthcare providers with improved dictation practices as well as to provide resources to healthcare organizations and transcription service providers for addressing the challenges of problematic dictation and its impact on the quality and integrity of documentation outcomes. Rational documents, tip sheets, Q-cards, training guidelines, training PowerPoint presentation, sample policies and procedures, and much more – all included in this important resource. Facilities/organizations that plan to adopt speech recognition technologies (SRT) as part of an operational model for health data capture should strongly consider use of this tool kit as an interim preparatory step in helping dictating healthcare providers improve dictation habits that will ensure better SRT readiness as an organization and a greater likelihood of improved documentation outcomes.
PHR Facilitator Tool Kit: As technology reshapes the way health information is being accessed and used by patient consumers, a new role for healthcare documentation professionals is emerging – PHR Facilitator. The consumer patient market is being alerted to the need for personal health records, and more people are taking a proactive role in both the management of their care and the coordination of their health records. Into this space can step a skilled documentation professional with a keen understanding of the essential elements of a care encounter, as consumers will need an expert to assist with accurate, complete aggregation of health history and care data as PHRs are created. This tool kit provides the fundamental resources to assist an MT/HDS toward this potential role, including contractual documents, sample forms, PowerPoint presentations developed for individuals and organizations to use in educating the public about PHRs and the role of an MT/HDS facilitator, and guidance in finding the best online PHR sources for creation and maintenance of a secure health record.
EHR Readiness Tool Kit: Healthcare facilities across the nation are migrating toward paperless records, anxious to see our nation move toward a truly interoperable health data infrastructure where health information can be exchanged across healthcare enterprises. How does an MT/HDS prepare for this potential change in technology? How does the healthcare documentation professional fit in the plans for migration to an EHR? MTs empowered with the right understanding, resources, and information can be a value-add to organizations needing a seamless migration to EMR/EHR technologies. This tool kit is designed to orient MTs/HDSs and others in healthcare documentation with the role, purpose, function, and potential considerations of EHR adoption/integration.
Healthcare Documentation Quality Assurance and Management Best Practices Tool Kit: This tool kit has been created for those healthcare providers, clinics, hospitals, and MTSOs who wish to implement the 2010 quality assurance guidelines and procedures. Tool kit design is based upon the assumption that users will have unique environments requiring flexibility in adoption of any set of best practices standards. Thus, the tool kit contains not only an adoption guide that summarizes the Best Practices document and suggests overall strategies for implementation, but also a set of 14 checklists that can be adapted to the user’s needs in the process of implementation, a Power Point presentation and a one-page handout to be used in explaining QA procedures to staff and other stakeholders, and a scoring spreadsheet ready to be applied to the users’ own needs.