EMR and EHR: The Intersection of EMRs and Health Information Management

It was with great regret that I canceled my trip to Healthport’s first HIM Educational Summit earlier this week. (A rampant stomach bug claimed me as the last victim in our family of four, and so I thought my healthcare conference colleagues would, in fact, appreciate my absence.) I had been scheduled to moderate a discussion on the exchange of personal health information within an accountable care organization (ACO) – a topic that I thought I knew a lot about, until I began researching the subject. Turns out that to truly grasp this topic from a health information management (HIM) perspective, you need to be well versed in the current state of ACOs, Office of Civil Rights audits, HIPAA rules and regulations, privacy and security breach prevention strategies, the bring-your-own-device movement …. Needless to say, HIM professionals seem to have their hands full at the moment, as they will likely interact with a few if not all of the aforementioned areas in the coming months.  I especially had been eager to see if this cartoon from Imprivata got a few chuckles from my audience. Pretty timely, no?