Inclusive Membership Proposal

Broadening Our Active Membership Strengthens AHIMA’s Position in Light of Work Force Shortages

The HIM department is no longer the only place where health information is managed. Today, technology has decentralized information management. As a result, many people would say they do HIM work. They may have a variety of roles, titles, and educational backgrounds. From a strategic standpoint, the AHIMA board believes that it is in the HIM profession’s best interest to find a way to bring those doing HIM work more formally into the field—to have them consider AHIMA as their professional home. We need their skills and we need more practitioners to meet the work force demand. They need our practice framework and career building resources.
The AHIMA board believes that inclusive membership will ultimately help its members increase their value in the workplace. AHIMA should be an association that welcomes all HIM professionals and values their input equally, whether they have a credential or not. Our members will promote HIM values and practices in their workplaces, raising the profile of the profession. We envision a future with AHIMA members in leadership positions shaping national data and interoperability standards, legal electronic health record standards, ICD-10 implementation best practices, EHR documentation improvement practices, HIM principles for EHR in every setting, PHRs, data for public health and clinical research, advanced privacy and security policies and practices, and all of the other HIM initiatives in all settings. In this vision, AHIMA is THE voice in the industry and all those who work in HIM want to belong.
HIM jobs are not likely to become scarce. In fact, AHIMA’s work force research has shown that while the need for a health information work force is growing, the number of trained professionals is not keeping pace. (To learn more, go to http://www.ahima.org/fore/professional/workforce.asp and http://www.ahima.org/emerging_issues/).
Over the years we’ve missed opportunities to embrace growing groups of professionals who have a special niche in our field. Each group has spun off into a separate organization that has increased the fragmentation of the voice of HIM in the workplace. While we can never control what new organizations spring up, we can certainly take steps to make our organization inclusive of all the professionals who work in our “knowledge space.”
In addition, we know new new job roles will emerge within HIM in the next decades. We want future HIM workers employed in these new specialized areas of HIM to call AHIMA their professional home.

Increased Influence as a Profession Will Add Extra Weight to AHIMA Credentials.

The Board envisions a future in which the HIM professional profile is raised as AHIMA becomes a stronger, more diverse association. As a result credentials will be strengthened, not diluted. A more diverse membership will help to promote critical HIM values and standards and increase the profession’s influence in healthcare. Increased influence will add extra weight to AHIMA credentials as recognition of competence and valued knowledge.
Some historical perspective: AHIMA did not require its members to have ANY credentials until the 1950s, when the equivalent of the present-day RHIA credential was first required for active membership. RHITs were not permitted full membership rights until 1993, and only after years of debate. AHIMA has been broadening the inclusiveness of its membership options for quite some time. The 1996 addition of the CCS and CCS-P credentials as criteria for active membership is one example. Inclusive membership has been discussed before—as recently as 10 years ago. But today’s environment and workplace are substantially different than ever before.
Credentials are and will continue to be an important way of demonstrating HIM expertise, especially to employers. We have targeted employers with marketing the value of our credentials with noted success. Our recent employer research indicates that the presence of a credential matters to potential employers.
HIM professionals no longer work exclusively within hospitals or HIM departments. Instead they are part of a complex network of multi-disciplinary knowledge workers. It is the intent of the proposal to embrace the larger HIM work force that shares the AHIMA mission.
With this proposal, the Board would like AHIMA to maintain a position of strong influence over the HIM field -- to be the standard-setter for the whole field, and not just for credential-holders. If we are perceived as a closed shop, these people moving into HIM-related positions are more likely to look elsewhere for their professional advice and standards (and membership home), which may marginalize us over time. Welcoming them into the association -- as active members – may encourage them to seek HIM credentials. And we believe their participation will make AHIMA's standards and ethics (and our credentials!) MORE recognized and more valued in the future, not less so.

Proven Leadership and Expertise in HIM Will Continue to Be an Attribute Supported by Members’ Votes in Electing Our Leadership.

We envision a future in which all active members have a say in the direction, leadership, and future of the association, whether or not they have a credential. We are confident that proven leadership and expertise in HIM will continue to be an attribute supported by members’ votes in electing our leadership. Our process for nomination, appointment, and election would continue to secure that intent.
In addition, the proposal includes a stipulation that a majority of the Board members must be AHIMA-approved credential holders.
Each year AHIMA members vote to elect leaders to the AHIMA Board of Directors, the Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education, and the Council on Certification. The ballot is determined by the Nominating Committee, the majority of whose members are elected by the House of Delegates.
Candidates are selected based on their attributes to lead the association, commission, and council. Component state associations also conduct an annual vote of members to elect their leadership.
Under the current bylaw proposal, none of these things would change. Voting decisions will continue to be in the hands of members who exercise their right to vote.
The bylaw change would make it possible for a non-AHIMA-credentialed HIM professional to be a candidate if he or she had the attributes necessary to lead the association, such as a strong history in HIM leadership, ethics, communication and negotiation skills. We want to have more diverse leadership, governance and decision-making in order to prepare for the future. Input from a broader and more diverse group of healthcare professionals will enable the association to make more informed and better decisions.
Other important governance processes under the control of the HoD such as maintenance of the Code of Ethics, standards for certification, and academic standards would remain in place.
Some associate members would like to have the opportunity to vote on these issues, just like their fellow members with credentials. For them, the ability to vote and have a voice can make the difference between their decision to join AHIMA versus joining another professional association.
We do not envision a time when credentialed members are outnumbered by those who do not hold a credential. Currently there are about 5,000 associate members who may be interested in becoming active members.

The Goal: Keeping a Strong Academic Base While Meeting Future Work Force Demand.

Currently, because of the work force demand, there are more new academic programs starting at the associate, baccalaureate, and master’s levels than in the past two decades. In light of this growth, we do not anticipate a negative impact on our academic programs as a result of this proposal.

The work force demands increase the need for academic programs. From 2000-2005, the number of students in HIA and HIT have grown more than 40%. Inclusive membership is not a short cut to professional competence. It is a way to ensure that people working in HIM know that an academic core exists and is supported by our association. And once an individual enters or graduates from an HIM program, they have a professional home, whether they seek certification or not.

Even though our academic HIM programs are strong and continuing to grow, this alone will not meet future health information work force demands. Rather, U.S. demographics and e-HIM are accelerating the demand nationally to employ more and more health information workers, credentialed or not.

We need to continue to provide qualified HIM graduates with academic-based credentials and to recognize those who have achieved professional recognition via non-academic-based credentials. In other words, we need both avenues to address work force issues and to influence the healthcare arena.

AHIMA would like all professionals working in HIM to obtain an AHIMA credential demonstrating competence. Appropriate practice-based credentials will need to be developed. Inclusive membership will help to achieve this goal.