Health Information Management (HIM) is the practice of maintenance and care of Health Records by traditional (paper based) or electronic means in hospitals, clinics, health departments, health insurance companies and other facilities that provide health care.
In the hospitals, health information management professionals play an important role in the provision of quality care, by providing quality information. Information is power. The profession contributes to quality care by analyzing clinical data that can be used to monitor performance improvement.
The department of Health Information Management is responsible for keeping accurate, orderly and permanent information of patient condition(s) and treatment(s). These information are often important in guiding patient care and they have other critical functions. Insurance companies use the information generated by Health Managers to determine if the patience care is to be covered by the insurance. The record containing the information can also be introduced as evidence in the court of law in the law suit or criminal proceedings to determine the severity of an injury or illness.Health Managers keeps and maintains health records and reports of patient admitted to the hospital. He/She prepares reports of births, deaths, discharges, operations, morbidity, and mortality.
The Health Information Management department is usually an integral part of the entire institution,provinding health care. Its function supports the patient through the entire continuum of the patients care. It also support administrative processes, billings, through classification, Medical education, and research through data gathering and analysis, quality management, risk management,utilization programme, legal requirements, data security and release of to an authorized user.
Health Information Management Officers are the initiators of patient documentation in any health facility. A patient cannot be attended to, in abstract. Therefor, there must be an initial documented facts about the patient which would server as a baseline, for commencement of other health care services by members of the health profession.
Members of Health Information Management profession perform diverse role in health care, and are employed in variety of work settings such as, Medical data analyst, government agencies, consulting firm, information system vendors, insurance companies, health data and information resource management, pharmaceutical companies, colleges and universities etc. Health Information Managers are experts in processing, analyzing, and reporting information vital to the health care industry. They are also involved in many types of Epidemiological factors,including studies of infectious diseases, cancer, and environmental factors.