Research Highlights
Visit this page for the latest updates on the AHIMA Foundation's research projects, awards, and publications.
Guide to Privacy and Security of Health Information
The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) Office of Chief Privacy Officer has developed a "Guide to Privacy and Security of Health Information" in partnership with the AHIMA Foundation. This comprehensive guide is designed to help healthcare practitioner, staff and other prfessionals to better understand the role of privacy and security in electronic health records and meaningful use, and provide a set of instructions to help integrate privacy and security into their clinical practice. Sections address security plan, and avaiable privacy and security tools and educational materials.
Click here download the guide
Guide to Reducing Unintended Consequences of Electronic Health Records
A new online Guide to Reducing Unintended Consequences of Electronic Health Records explores consequences you may not have seen coming when these complex environments meet increasingly complex electronic health records (EHRs). The RAND Corporation complield these known best pratices for anticipating, avoiding, and addressing EHR-related unintended consequences for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), in which the AHIMA Foundation was a core research organization and participant. The guide is a work in progress, and users are invited to revise the tools and recommentations in keeping with your own experiences and emerging research finding.
To start exploring the guide please click here
Strategic Working Relationship with the Population Health Impact Institute
On April 28, 2011, AHIMA Foundation and the Population Health Impact Institute (PHII) entered into a “Strategic Working Relationship on the Advancement and Accessibility of Scientific Knowledge in Health Information Management.” The goal of this relationship is to expand the healthcare community's access to timely, evidence-based, actionable best practice information across the various settings and modes of healthcare delivery by making that information accessible and understandable to all.
An initial project will be that PHII and others will strategically choose evidence-based articles from AHIMA Foundation’s Perspectives in Health Information Management, filter them through its customized peer review process, and deliver the reformatted version to a wider audience in a way that delivers on its mission of increasing the "learning" and knowledge transfer taking place in healthcare.
To learn more about PHII, visit their website
Click here to download the Memorandum of Understanding for information on the strategic working relationship
A Study of Health Care Fraud and Abuse: Implications for Professionals Managing Health Information
This paper examines various characteristics associated with different types of health care fraud and abuse, and examines the important role of the health information professional in helping to mitigate fraud and abuse.
This report was submitted to 3M Health Systems, Inc. by the AHIMA Foundation in November, 2010. The research was made possible through unrestricted funding from 3M Health Systems, Inc.
Click here to download the report
A Report on the National Stakeholder Summit: Setting a Quality Improvement Research Agenda to Leverage HIT/HIM in Rural America
In April of 2010, the AHIMA Foundation hosted a national stakeholder summit, "Setting a Quality Improvement Research Agenda to Leverage HIT/HIM in Rural America," which was funded in part through a small conference grant awarded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and from the Institute for Improvement of Minority Health and Health Disparities in the Delta Region.
The Foundation, along with key summit steering committee members, created a detailed report as a deliverable from the conference, synthesizing summit proceedings, discussions, and outcomes. This report calls for an increase in research that generates knowledge about using HIM, HIT, and telehealth to optimize rural healthcare and thereby improve patient safety and the health of rural underserved populations.
Click here to download the report
Making the Research Case for Using Health Information Technology (HIT) and Health Information Management (HIM) to Improve Rural Healthcare
As another deliverable from the national stakeholder summit, the AHIMA Foundation has created a guide for researchers, funders, and corporations that have a stake in HIM research and healthcare reform. The guide makes the case for the urgent need to enhance rural-specific research on HIM, HIT, and telehealth. The guide also recommends research to inform the cost-effective adoption of HIM, HIT, and telehealth that strengthens rural healthcare, as well as steps to put the research agenda into action, especially in public-private partnerships. The AHIMA Foundation is exploring this research agenda with key stakeholders.
Click here to download the guide
Presentation on ICD-10 and Domestic Violence
"Implications of ICD-10 in Identifying Family Violence" was presented at the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities annual meeting on October 23, 2010, in San Diego. The co-authors are Bill Rudman, PhD, Felicia Cohen, PhD; Valarie Watzlaf, PhD; and Susan Hart-Hester, PhD.
The presentation examines the advantages of using ICD-10 over ICD09 in indentifying family and domestic violence. The new codes are expanded to have more granularity in terms of the number of domestic violence codes; they also include suspected abuse and perpetrator codes. This will help caregivers provide better treatment and researchers better identify domestic violence using ICD data.
Click here to download the presentation