CHICAGO, May 2--Computer-assisted coding (CAC) can streamline the way that healthcare organizations gather data and submit claims for services. However, there are no standards in place to ensure that consistent, complete, and accurate data is being captured. On September 6 - 8, clinicians, health information management (HIM) professionals, health information technology system vendors, regulatory agencies and payers will gather in Arlington, VA, for the first collaborative effort to establish standards for development and maintenance of CAC applications.

"Uniform standards of metrics and validation are essential to enable software vendors to prepare their products for multiple targets such as CAC for billing, research, and post-market drug surveillance," says Keith Campbell, MD, PhD, vice
president and chief architect for Informatics, Inc. "These standards will also help prospective customers by providing apples-to-apples comparisons for evaluating CAC software's quality, accuracy, and for evaluating the defensibility of the claims they generate and their corresponding risk for generation of fraudulent claims."


The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and its Foundation of Research and Education (FORE) are sponsoring a workshop to develop recommendations for standards for CAC. The Computer-Assisted Coding Software Standards Workshop will include plenary sessions, a research forum, and topic-specific workgroups.

The workshop aims to:
-Develop a framework of specific standards for evaluating computer-assisted coding software.
-Align computer-assisted coding software standards so they are applicable for multiple and varied use.
-Understand the next steps for continued computer-assisted coding software standards
development and implementation.

"This workshop is important to the scientific community in two significant ways. First, it will begin to establish accepted standards and methodologies for researchers and developers working in this area," states Susan Fenton, MBA, RHIA, practice leadership manager at AHIMA. "Second, much of current medical science is built on the ability to accurately represent data. However, historical weak links have been the code sets and the accuracy with which they are deployed. This conference is a much-needed start to strengthening those links."

AHIMA/FORE is currently soliciting papers on research related to CAC software evaluation and methodologies, gold standard selection, or development. The submission deadline is May 26, 2006. Submissions will be peer-reviewed and authors will be notified of acceptance decisions no later then July 1, 2006. For details and to complete the online submission process, visit

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