Five Eentials for Leading Information Governance Redesign by Linda L. Klo, MA, RHIA, FAHIMA

The 8th blog in the Healthcare Information Governance Predictions & Perspectives blog series. This blog series is focused on Health IG Professional Readiness.

With the healthcare industry undergoing historical disruption, strategic change in the form of redesign is accelerating throughout our organizations. A myriad of delivery and payment processes are being reshaped to deliver much needed improvements in clinical outcomes, customer engagement and fiscal performance on a scale that we have never before experienced. With so much flux in healthcare, its not surprising that surveys show that while there is recognition of the strategic drivers for information governance (IG), IG programs are less prevalent and less mature in healthcare organizations than is warranted, given the importance of the information.

IG is also not an organizational strategy in the way that care delivery, population health, clinical outcomes and patient engagement are. IG enables success in achieving core strategies, all of which rely on trusted information. When IG is deficient, the needed information may not be available or it may not be trustworthy because of persistence of data quality issues, including redundant, conflicting and discordant information. Immature IG also increases costs of information processing and storage, and increases compliance risks.

IG is not new nor is it absent. Improving IG requires redesign of existing structures, processes and the performance of people to deliver more consistently effective information management performance. Leaders of IG are encouraged to reflect on the following best practices:

1. Focus on the longer-term strategic aims

While there may be an abundance of urgent pain points, IG leaders do best when they are clear from the outset about what IG redesign can do for the organization over the long term. Particular emphasis should be on how IG enables the organization's strategic priorities.

2. Survey the current state

IG leaders must help paint a complete picture of the state of information, not just in their area of responsibility (HIM, IT) but across the organization. It's too easy to assume that the current state of affairs is clear and that one understands the needs, the priorities, and the skills and talents available to support the redesign work.

3. Engage broadly to plan the right roadmap for redesign

Rather than relying on gut instinct about how best to begin, take the time to engage with those who understand various dimensions of the information ecosystem. This will help you develop redesign criteria, and make better choices about where early attention should be directed. It will also help to mitigate bias and the influence of political agendas.

4. Critically assess the talent needs gap

Focus on the needed roles first, then on people rather than the other way around. Helping people to gain new skills and competencies is an important part of maturing IG. All information-centric roles are getting more complex, requiring deeper skills and competencies, including those related to complex project management and to working in multi-disciplinary teams.

5. Use metrics to measure short- and long-term success

The Cohasset | AHIMA 2014 Information Governance in Healthcare survey revealed that only 10 percent of respondents' organizations had metrics to guide IG. New or modified metrics, or key performance indicators, will provide a yardstick of how IG is contributing to performance over the short and long term. Metrics are best set when longer-term aims are being laid, not after the fact.

A new survey, a follow-up to the landmark Cohasset | AHIMA 2014 Information Governance in Healthcare survey was just published. This Cohasset | AHIMA 2015 Information Governance in Healthcare survey focuses on Professional Readiness and Opportunity to lead IG. At its core, IG redesign is about people, their talents and skills, the processes they follow, and the effective management of individual performance. The new survey tells us about how information professionals self assess their readiness to lead and contribute to IG, and how well their efforts are being acknowledged and supported.

It takes courage to step out of one's comfort zone to lead a new initiative. Gain a deeper understanding of the human and political dimensions of IG in healthcare by reading the Cohasset | AHIMA 2015 Information Governance in Healthcare -Professional Readiness and Opportunity survey report.

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Join our Twitter Chat: Healthcare IG Professional Readiness: Predictions and Perspectives #InfoTalk

On July 29th at 10:00am PT/1:00 pm ET, @IronMtnHealth is hosting a Twitter chat using #InfoTalk to further the dialog. If you have been involved in governance-related projects, we'd love to have you join. Topics include how your organizations' IG oversight body is utilizing the principles of IG; the IG disciplines that comprise your job responsibilities, and the tactics you are using to strengthen IG-related skills? Join in to keep the conversation going.

Hear more voices from the thought leaders of the healthcare industry by reading the rest of the blogs in this series: Health IG Professional Readiness.

LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2015/industry/healthcare-information-man...
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