AHDI Preview

Conference Offers Documentation Integrity
and Improvement Education

By Heather Hogstrom

The Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity’s (AHDI) 37th Annual Conference will be in Alexandria, Virginia, August 7-8. However, attendees may want to head to Alexandria early to also attend AHIMA’s Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI) Summit, which is being held in conjunction with AHDI’s conference and will take place August 6-7.

Visitors may be interested in touring the shops and restaurants of Old Town Alexandria, the historic center of the city. Or take advantage of being in the Washington, D.C. area by visiting some of the attractions the capital has to offer, such as the Washington Monument or the Smithsonian Museums and National Zoo. Friday night will include an opportunity for sightseeing, as attendees are encouraged to take selfies around town while wearing their 2015 AHDI advocacy shirt and post them on online with the hashtag #BroughtToLife.

Attendees from medical transcriptionists and scribes to CDI specialists and HIM professionals can catch up on important issues, see the latest tools and technology, and boost their knowledge at this informative conference. Each day’s sessions will be split into two tracks. Friday will focus on ICD-10/Physician Engagement and Data Analytics & Integrity, while Saturday will feature Game Changers and Learning Centers.

New England Medical Transcription President Linda Allard, CHPS, and IT Director Andrew Clarke are among the featured presenters. “The Telecommuter’s Survival Guide,” an early riser session slated for 7 AM on Saturday, will teach medical transcriptionists working from home how to secure personal health information. Allard will discuss compliance with federal HIPAA regulations, while Clarke will focus on computer security.

“When you work in an office, most security and encryption issues are handled for you,” Allard said in a press release. “Those of us who work from home have to set up and protect our own computers and e-mail systems without running afoul of patient privacy regulations. It’s not difficult if you know the exact specifications and steps and that’s what we’ll be discussing in our presentation.”

Attendees who want to learn more about HIPAA can go to the session “Take Two Aspirin and Tweet Me in the Morning: Managing the Interplay between Social Media and HIPAA” by Deirdre Kamber Todd, Esq, CHP, of the Kamber Law Group, P.C., to make sure social media use in the workplace is compliant with privacy standards.

Saturday morning will also feature a keynote address from Leana Wen, MD, MSc, FAAEM, Baltimore City Health Commissioner and author of When Doctors Don’t Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests.

For more information and to register, visit www.ahdionline.org/ACE.

— Heather Hogstrom is an editorial assistant at For The Record.