In some ways, the title alone explains much of what Health Information Technicians do. However, as with most things in life, it’s not as simple as that. As most of us who’ve seen a doctor recently know, the healthcare industry has evolved from paper records to electronic ones. And Health Information Technicians are charged with being the custodians of one of the industry’s most important tools – those medical records.
Health information needs to be accurate, complete, carefully maintained, and protected. And, with the transition to computer-based records, the knowledge and skills of Health Information Technicians has become more important than ever.
The typical Health Information Technician works in a hospital: or at the least, in hospital-like settings, such as physician’s offices, nursing homes, cancer registries, health agencies and more, including corporate environments. They code and categorize patient information for insurance purposes, database registries, and to ensure patient medical and treatment histories are up-to-date.
Their duties will vary according to their employers. Working for an insurance company, pharmaceutical operation or software vendor, for example, may encompass much of the same fact-gathering…just from a different perspective. Those duties generally include reviewing patients’ records to ensure accuracy and appropriateness of the data, tracking patient outcomes to determine how well treatments worked, and electronically collecting, storing, analyzing and reporting on the compiled data.
While they usually do not work directly with patients, they do collaborate regularly with healthcare providers, such as nurses and other professionals, to gather information, clarify diagnoses and complete record-keeping. The work they do often is also used in research, statistical analyses, and determining healthcare trends.
As you see, the information maintained by Health Information Technicians is important to quality healthcare. Select Fortis campuses in Alabama and Texas offer programs in Health Information Technology that prepare graduates for entry-level employment as Medical Information Coders, Medical Insurance Specialists, Medical Insurance Processors, and other Medical Administrative positions.
Visit our Health Information Technology program page to learn more.
