Originally founded in 1961 as the Hospital Management Systems Society, today the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is a non-profit organization that focuses on improving health with IT innovations on a global scale. It does this by creating strong inter-agency relationships among its common members, who have ties throughout the healthcare industry.
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Medical billing and coding professionals are directly impacted by the actions of HIMSS as the organization successfully advocates the use of tools like Electronic Health Records (EHRs). Billing and coding professionals are also affected by government, healthcare, and insurance industry policy changes that favor the incorporation of IT tools, which are adopted and implemented thanks in part to the efforts of HIMSS.
Some examples of HIMSS activities include:
- Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise initiative – this program gathers data about the standards, guidelines, and requirements for targeted sectors of the healthcare industry, with the goal of standardizing and improving these with technology
- Alliance for Nursing Informatics – an association of thousands of nurses which seeks to advance nursing informatics, a practice that uses aggregated data to discern best practices
- National Health IT Week – a forum that brings together key players in the healthcare industry from pharmaceutical companies to vendors, with the goal of highlighting the need for a greater role of IT in healthcare
With tens of thousands of attendees at its annual conferences, HIMSS has a far reaching influence.
Reach of HIMSS
Headquartered in Chicago, HIMSS has a presence in other US locations as well as in Europe and Asia:
- Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Arlington, Virginia
- Brussels, Belgium
- Singapore
The worldwide ranks of HIMSS’ membership includes more than 52,000 individuals, 600 corporations, and 250 not-for-profit organizations. Reviewing the affiliations of HIMSS board members is an illustrative way of seeing the multi-industry influence the non-profit has.
Board members hold or have held senior-level positions with organizations and companies including:
- Stratis Health based in Bloomington, Minnesota
- Regional Extension Assistance Centers – coordination offices located throughout the US to facilitate the implementation of federal healthcare IT initiatives, such as Meaningful Use and EHRs
- Encore Health Resources based in Houston
- Presbyterian Healthcare Services in Albuquerque
- Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus
- Swedish Health Services in Seattle
- First Choice Health Network in Seattle
- Caradigm, a population health company headquartered in Seattle
- Alliance of Chicago Community Health Services
- North Bronx Healthcare Network
- Queens Health Network
- New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation
- Albany Medical Center
- New York State Department of Health, Office of Health Information Technology and Transformation
- MITRE Corporation
- eHealth Services Group
- Georgia Health Information Network
- Center for Pediatric Informatics at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington DC
- Children’s IQ Network in the DC metro area
- New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System
- Orlando Health
- Central Georgia Health System
- Sparrow Health System
- Walgreens
- Wolf Healthcare Innovations
- Kaiser Permanente
- Quest Communications
- North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance