WASHINGTON, DC, March 16 -- Health information management (HIM) professionals from across the country gathered in Washington, DC yesterday to urge national legislators and policy makers to support legislation to upgrade the U.S. coding and classification system to ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS in order to improve the quality of healthcare data and to reap the full benefits of U.S. investment in health IT.

"The current system, ICD-9-CM, is not meeting today's healthcare data needs and cannot support the transition to an interoperable health data exchange in the US. The full benefits of electronic health records (EHR) can only be realized if we improve the quality of data that EHRs are designed to manage," said Jill Callahan Dennis, JD, RHIA, president of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA). "We need ICD-10 because significant advances in the understanding of disease and treatments have been made over the last 30 years and the ways in which coded data are being used today go well beyond the capacity of our current system."

Nearly 150 HIM leaders held more than 180 meetings with members of Congress and their staff as part of the 2006 Capitol Hill Day, an annual event sponsored by AHIMA. In addition to the need for quality data for quality healthcare, these AHIMA members from 33 states addressed the need for uniform privacy laws and nondiscrimination based on health information, HIM and informatics workforce, and other issues associated with electronic health information management (e-HIM©) and the building of a nationwide health information network.
"2006 is a crucial year for the HIM profession and AHIMA as we have a number of issues that will be discussed by the new 109th Congress," adds Callahan Dennis. "Never has it been more important that we put these issues on Congress' plate and establish working relationships between our profession and their offices."

For more information, visit AHIMA's Web site at www.ahima.org/dc.

AHIMA is the premier association of health information management (HIM) professionals. AHIMA's 50,000 members are dedicated to the effective management of personal health information needed to deliver quality healthcare to the public. Founded in 1928 to improve the quality of medical records, AHIMA is committed to advancing the HIM profession in an increasingly electronic and global environment through leadership in advocacy, education, certification, and lifelong learning.

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