Industry Insight

Care Communications Appoints Kathy Johnson to New VP Role

Care Communications, Inc, a national HIM consulting and staffing firm, has announced the appointment of Kathy Johnson, RHIA, as vice president of coding quality and compliance services.

Johnson provides strategic guidance for Care Communications and several coding-related national committees as they help hospitals and health networks adapt to the future state of coding and the efficiency- and compliance-related needs of their organizations. She and her team will continue to help hospitals and health networks improve the bottom line and maintain compliance when handling regulations from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, including recovery audit contractors, Medicare administrative contractors, and hospital-acquired conditions, as well as preparing for the transition to ICD-10 and juggling the many other regulatory changes that lie ahead.

Along with Johnson’s promotion to vice president, Care Communications’ coding services department will be renamed coding quality and compliance to reflect the growth and demand of coding compliance services for hospitals and physician practices.

— Source: Care Communications

 

Margret Amatayakul Named Distinguished Alumna by University of Illinois

The College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago has selected Margret Amatayakul as the 2010 Distinguished Alumnus Award recipient.

Amatayakul is a 1970 graduate of the college’s program in medical record administration (now called HIM). Since 1999, she has been president of Margret\A Consulting, a company that helps healthcare providers to adopt EHRs.

In 2005, Amatayakul founded Health IT Certification to provide professional training and certification to those responsible for planning, selecting, implementing, and managing EHRs and other health information technologies.

Throughout the 1990s, she served as a leader in her field by consulting and advocating for the adoption of health information technologies. This included helping to establish and serving as chief executive of the Computer-based Patient Record Institute, which educated professionals and the public to promote use of EHR systems.

— Source: University of Illinois at Chicago College of Applied Health Sciences

 

Just Associates CEO Beth Just Accepted as AHIMA Fellow

Beth Just, CEO and president of Just Associates, Inc, a consulting firm specializing in patient data integrity solutions for the HIM, health informatics, and HIT markets, has been accepted as a fellow in the AHIMA.

The AHIMA Fellowship Program recognizes members who have made significant and sustained contributions to the HIM and health informatics professions through meritorious service, excellence in professional practice and HIM education, innovation, and knowledge sharing. Fellow status is a lifetime recognition, subject to continuing AHIMA membership and Code of Ethics compliance.

An AHIMA member since 1978, Just has more than 30 years of experience in the healthcare industry, including 20 years of HIM consulting. She founded Just Associates in 2002.

Just, who currently serves on the AHIMA Board of Directors, is past cochair of the Health Information Exchange Practice Council and a member of the HIM Principles in HI and Patient Integrity workgroups. She was recognized as a Colorado Health Information Management Association Distinguished Member. In addition to the AHIMA, Just is active in HIMSS, including involvement in the Privacy and Security Workgroup on Identity Management.

— Source: Just Associates, Inc

 

The Leapfrog Group Announces New Board Members

Leapfrog Board Chairman David Knowlton announced the election of five new members to The Leapfrog Group’s Board of Directors, effective June 17, bringing the total number of board members to 14. The board also announced a new nonvoting board liaison representing the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, joining other agency board liaisons from the Office of Personnel Management and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The new board members are as follows:

• David Goldhill (Santa Monica, Calif.)
  President & CEO, GSN
  Goldhill has emerged as a leading national consumer advocate of patient safety since authoring a cover story, “How American Health Care Killed My Father,” in The Atlantic in September 2009. He has served as president and CEO of GSN, a multimedia entertainment company formerly called the Game Show Network since 2007.
• Susan C. Reinhard (Washington, D.C.)
  Senior Vice President, AARP Public Policy Institute
  Chief Strategist, Center to Champion Nursing in America
  Reinhard is a top leader at AARP, heading up policy research for this nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that is one of the largest and most influential in the country. She is a nationally noted nursing leader with a long career of leadership in academic settings and founded AARP’s Center to Champion Nursing in America.
• Laurel Pickering (New York City)
  Executive Director, New York Business Group on Health
  Pickering oversees the New York Business Group on Health’s health insurance exchange, HealthPass, and has held national leadership positions at the National Committee for Quality Assurance, the National Business Coalition on Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The New York Business Group on Health is one of Leapfrog’s oldest and most active regional rollouts and represents more than 2 million covered lives.
• Becky Dunk (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)
  Senior Manager, Health and Welfare Benefits, AEGON USA, LLC
  Dunk is the chair of the Iowa Health Buyers’ Alliance, one of Leapfrog’s regional rollouts. She manages health and welfare plans and is responsible for the design, pricing, and administration of the employee benefit plans for the 14,000 employees and 3,000 retirees of the various AEGON affiliates. She has been active in the rollout and assertive in encouraging hospitals to participate in The Leapfrog Hospital Survey.
• Martin J. Hatlie (Chicago)
  CEO, Coalition for Quality and Patient Safety of Chicagoland; President, Partnership for Patient Safety; Program Director, Consumers Advancing Patient Safety
  Hatlie is an international leader in consumer advocacy of patient safety. He served as the founding executive director of the National Patient Safety Foundation, cofounded Consumers Advancing Patient Safety as a pathway for engaging patients as partners, and worked extensively with the World Health Organization to develop a network of patient champions who advise its World Alliance for Patient Safety.
• P. Jon White, MD (Washington, D.C.) (Nonvoting Board Liaison)
  Director, Health IT Portfolio, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
  White received his MD from the University of Virginia and trained as a resident at Lancaster General Hospital in Pennsylvania, where he received the American Academy of Family Physicians/Mead Johnson Award for Graduate Education. He has experience in HIT development and implementation in the ambulatory and acute settings and was most recently chief medical informatics officer and associate residency director of Lancaster General.

— Source: The Leapfrog Group