AHIMA Calls for Nominations for Its Prestigious Grace Award

Seeking to recognize a health care delivery organization that takes an outstanding and innovative approach to HIM, AHIMA is calling for applications for the seventh annual Grace Award. 

Interested applicants can submit their entries via ahima.org/grace through May 25. 

Ninety years ago, Grace Whiting Myers acted on a sincere conviction to improve the quality of our nation's health records by founding the association now known as AHIMA. The idea was simple—that advancements in the collection and organization of health information will invariably help to improve public health. As a tribute to Myers' prescient vision, AHIMA's annual HIM award bears her name: The Grace Award. 

Past winners of the Grace Award regularly demonstrated transformative journeys toward new and innovative HIM practices that also delivered better patient outcomes. 

"As health care organizations collectively capture vast amounts of patient data, there is an obvious opportunity to leverage this information into better medical decisions," says AHIMA CEO Wylecia Wiggs Harris, PhD. "Through the Grace Award, the HIM community can honor one exemplary organization that effectively advances this purpose." 

The 2018 award will be presented at AHIMA's Annual Convention and Exhibit in Miami, Florida, September 22–26. 

A committee of judges, representing health care delivery organizations, health information professionals, and HIM associations, selects the Grace Award. This year's judges are the following: 

• Chair Elizabeth Curtis, RHIA, CHPS, FAHIMA, administrative director of medical information management at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center; 

• Tracie Allen, RHIA, FACHE, US Army Chief, Mission Support, U.S. Transportation Command, Theater Patient Movement Requirements Center; 

• Shelly Asbury, CCS, CCS-P, director of physician coding compliance at JSA Healthcare; 

• Kenneth Clyburn, RHIA, CHPS, health information services director at Beaufort Memorial Hospital; 

• Stephanie Luthi-Terry, RHIA, CHPS, FAHIMA, MA, director of enterprise HIM integration/eHIM business solutions at Allina Healthcare; 

• Nicole Mathis-Walker, RHIA, associate director of HIM at MD Anderson Cancer Center; 

• Kyle McElroy, RHIA, MS, corporate associate vice president of HIM operations at IASIS Healthcare; and 

• Sandra Pearson, RHIA, CHDA, CDI and data governance director at SCL Health. 

Distinguished Grace Award alumni include SCL Health (2017), The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center (2016), Allina Health of Minneapolis (2015), Children's Medical Center of Dallas (2014), Truman Medical Centers (2013), and University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinic (2012).

— Source: AHIMA