AHDI ACE Final Thoughts
Chad Sines
This is my last update as your delegate. Officially the term ended last week. The future will be interesting. I am eager to see this new leadership board in action. So here is your final message from me as your delegate…
Well, I needed to take a few days to compose my thoughts before wrapping up ACE. There were a lot of questions I needed to ask, opinions I needed to solicit, and you should have seen all the emails, tweets, and Facebook conversations I had to answer. At many times during the HOD, BOD, industry meetings, and educational meetings I had 5-10 real time chats going on with members, other industry leaders, and those both at the convention and at home. It was amazing and exciting.
So here goes. Breathe deep before reading it and understand it is coming from someone who loves his profession and Association and wants so bad for both to reach the heights they can reach if only they get out of their own way.
It is tough wrapping up this year’s ACE. There is sadness at the loss of the HOD, a group that was the grassroots of the Association. The new structure has potential so long as it sticks to how it was planned. There is a lot of concern over no newly-defined directions, no deep commitments to credentialing, no actual defined new revenue streams, and the feeling that nothing changed despite all the leadership changes. There is frustration over our seeming acceptance of being left behind. You could feel it in the hearts of the MTs, MTSOs, and vendors.
Where does this industry stand? Where does the Association stand? We have repeated many of the same problems that I heard from my first HOD meeting 6-7 years ago, but I am not sure we have any new answers. Most of my must haves from my previous post were not answered at all. I am left scratching my head and worrying if we care that we seem to have (arguably) made little progress over the last 6 years in many areas although some have seen great gains.
Still, I want to remind myself that the new board does not start until September, a major staff person, Lea Sims (who I will miss arguing with all the time) has left, and the CEO is only 60 days into her role. I can accept all of this so long as the next BOD meeting blows me out of the water with news so amazing, directions so different, and plans so defined that I fall out of my chair Twittering (which I only did once when someone ran into the wall while talking). If this happens, AHDI will redeem itself and chart a new direction. AHDI will become what it needs to become.
My biggest take-home message which I know has been popular since people are sniping it, sharing it, and some even appearing to try to claim it as their own thought is “My take home message #ace365- MTs must determine their relevance in this industry now and stop hoping someone will figure it out for them.”
I heard a lot of people asking what AHDI was going to do to ensure the MT was relevant in the future. Some asked how MT would train them for new roles. I kept wondering, why is it AHDI’s job to do for you what you can do for you? That makes no sense to me.
We as MTs are sadly, very reactive. We sit back, let things happen, complain about them, get surprised when nothing changes, and then wall offer any more. Rinse and repeat. We love being the victim. It is easier than accepting that we control our fate. We have relegated ourselves to the sidelines as individuals who sit behind a screen and only experience a very narrow window of healthcare documentation. We shun technology. We loathe the phrase “you type what you hear” but we reject that which may move us past the skill set of typing and into the new era of healthcare documentation. We ARE getting left behind because WE refuse to get off our behind and do something about it.
In looking at many of these new HIM roles, I was salivating. They are hip, cool, exciting, sexy. They attract the youth. They move us past the basement, past the keyboard, past production pay, past typists and into new uncharted areas where we define our future. These new roles allow MTs to incorporate the old and the new and become a pivotal person in the role of healthcare documentation.
All that is holding us back is ourselves.
Chad C. Sines, MS, MBA, AHDI-F
Southeast Delegate