Getting Fit with Healcare Information Governance by Nancy Twombly

The volume of information in the healthcare industry continues to grow exponentially. With Meaningful Use, ICD-10, and Accountable Care all contributing to this data growth, there is a strong need to develop strategies to effectively manage this information throughout its lifecycle. With more patients, more procedures, more regulations and more interconnected care, it's no wonder that Health IT staff and HIM professionals are continually challenged with the ability to keep on top of the information deluge.

In this case, it may be wise to take heed of the old adage an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure . This advice is usually directed at patients, but can also be applied to providers. By taking a proactive approach to managing healthcare information, and by instituting proven strategies for managing and governing information, providers can mitigate more invasive procedures in the future and get a clean information bill of health.

While this approach sounds so simple, it requires discipline and sound execution to get to the end goal. But the payoff is there for providers that focus their efforts on getting control over their rapidly growing and increasingly distributed information. By implementing governance policies and practices , providers can evolve from siloed pockets of data to enterprise-wide IG, enabling them to reduce costs and risks - while enhancing patient care.

The recent findings from the June, 2014 Information Governance in Healthcare Benchmarking White Paper assessed the status of Information Governance in healthcare organizations from around the world. In some areas, the results indicate that providers have mature IG policies and practices. In other areas, however, the results reveal significant room for improvement to enable providers get to a best-in-class IG status.

So what are some of the best practice recommendations to achieve Enterprise Information Governance? The answer varies across health organizations, and it all depends on your starting point. Like starting a new fitness plan, you first need to develop your plan of action, and understand the behaviors you need to change. Providers that are just getting engaged on an IG program need to start with the fundamentals - like selling the concept of IG within their organization.

But individuals that have a well established fitness plan want strategies and techniques that are fine-tuned to deliver optimal results. For healthcare providers, this is also true. Providers that have an IG program that is well underway typically want to optimize their program by establishing metrics and measurements that will enable them greater visibility into their current practices. In this case, there are a number of dial-moving strategies that providers can employ to enhance the maturity of their program's privacy, security, compliance and quality attributes.

But like any fitness plan, ongoing maintenance is critical to long-term success. And in the case of Information Governance, providers need to continually evaluate and audit their program to continue to maintain results. Through focused planning, implementation, measurement and reporting, improvements in IG policies and practices can make a real impact. And that's a vision we'd all like to see reflected in our mirror.

Keep the conversation going. Let us know if your organization has deployed successful strategies for Healthcare Information Governance - and the results you have achieved.

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LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2014/industry/healthcare-information-man...
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