A Long Recovery

HIM departments three years after Katrina

CHICAGO, August 29, 2008—Complete devastation was the result after water from a levee break destroyed countless paper medical records, caused unprecedented damage to healthcare facilities, triggered a mass exodus that created severe staffing shortages, and  exemplified a dire need for electronic health record implementations in health information management (HIM) departments that still plague New Orleans on this, the third anniversary after Hurricane Katrina left the Big Easy in peril on August 29, 2005, according to an article published in the September issue of the Journal of AHIMA.

The disaster forced healthcare facility closures for weeks. A Long Recovery discusses the ongoing struggle HIM departments are experiencing with wage increases meant to entice employees back to the battered city. The work force shortages have resulted in a large pay raise for entry-level HIM positions across the region.

Katrina impacted the medical records in most HIM departments because of water or mold. The article explains the challenges encountered to recover those paper records, and the lesson learned in the aftermath of the storm: most electronic records were safe and ready to use once the facility reopened. The storm made clear the value of electronic health records, but most hospitals are struggling and electronic health record system implementations are on hold until their financial situation brightens. The hospitals that implemented health information technology had to raise their own money, setting aside funds as an investment in recovering lost revenue.

The story includes a sidebar that details why the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals—at the recommendation of the US Department of Health and Human Services—created the Louisiana Health Care Redesign Collaborative to draw up a plan to implement sweeping changes and cutting-edge information technology for all state healthcare facilities. Three years later, the hospitals in the areas affected by Katrina have not seen the plan come to fruition.

Read the complete article in the September issue of the Journal of AHIMA or online at journal.ahima.org.

About AHIMA

The American Health Information Management Association is America’s leading professional society whose mission is to “improve healthcare by advancing best practices and standards for health information management and [serve as] the trusted source for education, research and professional credentialing.” AHIMA represents more than 53,000 specially educated HIM professionals who serve healthcare and the public by managing, analyzing and utilizing data vital for health system management.