CHICAGO – Sept. 10, 2020 – The cover story in the September issue of the Journal of AHIMA explores a potential pathway for improved clinical and administrative health data integration. Enhancing the exchange of data across health systems, particularly between payers and providers, can lower administrative costs and lead to better health outcomes, Genevieve Diesing writes.

AHIMA CEO Wylecia Wiggs Harris, PhD, CAE, says that’s why AHIMA’s Board of Directors recently approved a policy statement that says, “AHIMA supports the use of policy and other tools to realize the benefits of greater integration of clinical and administrative data.”

“It’s vital that policymakers develop public policy that addresses the longstanding challenges around sharing health data between administrative and clinical health systems,” Harris said. “As anyone who follows the industry knows, health information professionals can offer valuable perspective and experience on this issue. AHIMA will continue to strive to help create a healthcare ecosystem that allows for greater data integration between these two distinct data streams of administrative and clinical data.”

In her article, Diesing details how administrative data streams, like those used by payers, and clinical data streams, which healthcare providers use, are coded differently using different code sets and vocabularies and rely on separate technical standards. She notes they are also subject to separate laws, which can further complicate the exchange of information.

Read A Pathway to Clinical and Administrative Data Integration in the September edition of the Journal of AHIMA. The issue also features articles about contact tracing in Hawaiʻi, how to use change management strategies to adapt to an ongoing remote workforce, and more.

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About AHIMA
AHIMA is a global nonprofit association of health information (HI) professionals. AHIMA represents professionals who work with health data for more than one billion patient visits each year. AHIMA’s mission of empowering people to impact health drives our members and credentialed HI professionals to ensure that health information is accurate, complete, and available to patients and providers. Our leaders work at the intersection of healthcare, technology, and business, and are found in data integrity and information privacy job functions worldwide.