CHICAGO, March 22--The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and the American Health Quality Association (AHQA) announced a national educational partnership to advance healthcare quality improvement to accelerate the adoption and effective use of health information technology (HIT).

"Both AHQA and AHIMA are committed to cost effective training and technical assistance for quality improvement organization (QIO) staff and the communities that we both serve," said David Schulke, AHQA Executive Vice President. "Our collaboration has already produced real benefits for QIOs, such as customized educational opportunities to support QIOs as they work with thousands of physician practices across the country to adopt HIT. We expect the learning that takes place under this partnership to be translated by QIOs into better performance by physicians in every state," he added.

To date, the joint partnership includes:
* Full access to AHIMA's e-HIM© practice guidance materials and best practices
* A special one-day seminar at AHQA's annual meeting this past February, Leading Transformation Change: The QIO Challenge
* Applied Informatics in Physician Practice, a Web-based training program
* Community-based public education programming
* A special series of articles on legal aspects of electronic health record (EHR) selection and use in AHQA Matters

Additional cooperative efforts will take place over the coming year.

"We look forward to continually providing direct assistance, as well as networking support, to QIOs in the pursuit of improving healthcare and its underlying information infrastructures," adds Sandy Fuller, MA, RHIA, AHIMA's executive vice president and COO.

More information on the mission and programming of each organization can be found at www.ahima.org and www.ahqa.org.

The American Health Quality Association represents Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) and professionals working to improve the quality of health care in communities across America. QIOs share information about best practices with physicians, hospitals, nursing homes, and home health agencies. Working together with health care providers in every setting of care, QIOs identify opportunities and provide assistance for improvement.

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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