Dive Brief:
- During a general session on Tuesday at the American Health Information Management Association's annual conference in San Diego, the association released a guidance framework for data governance.
- Information Governance Principles for Healthcare (IGPHC) are intended to provide guidance for the governance of information across all functions of organizations in the industry. The association defines information governance as "an organization-wide framework for managing information throughout its lifecycle and for supporting the organization’s strategy, operations, regulatory, legal, risk, and environmental requirements."
- IGPHC is based on eight principles: accountability, transparency, integrity, protection, compliance, availability, retention and disposition. They are intended to be "interpreted and applied depending upon an organization’s type, size, role, mission, sophistication, legal environment, and resources," according to the AHIMA publication.
Dive Insight:
AHIMA is clearly trying to be the voice of authority for information governance in healthcare, something the industry badly needs. The association released the results of a survey earlier this year that revealed that 35% of respondents didn't even know if their organization had any active information governance efforts in place. 22% said their organizations recognized the need for such a program but had put nothing in place. Only 11% characterized their governance programs as "mature."
One of the chief challenges facing providers that are struggling with organization-wide information governance programs is acquisition activity, according to Karen Snyder, Director of Product Management for HIM vendor Iron Mountain.
"The uptick in organizational change is creating a huge challenge," Snyder told Healthcare Dive. "They may be able to manage the records in the existing portfolio of facilities that they have, but then they start acquiring. They have different systems that don't talk to each other and different processes for managing paper records."