Trying something new - professionally

You probably noticed it has been a while since my last entry. The reason for this began in December when I received an email from my national association (Canadian Health Information Management Association - CHIMA) as well as from my national database (Canadian Institute of Health Information - CIHI). In the email they were asking coders to apply to take part in a reabstraction study (this is year 2 of a 5-year study). I had applied last year but did not have enough experience in inpatient coding. In January I received my phone call asking for an interview. After the 35 min interview I had 24 hours to complete 4 case studies and fax it back to CIHI. In February I received my letter inviting me to the training session where I will still have to write a coding test before being chosen. So this past week (March 17-20th), I have been in Ottawa at the training session.

It has been a great 4 days meeting 10 other ladies from across Canada (1 each from BC, SASK, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland & Labrador, and the remainder from ONT). I was the one representing AB. I have heard from the others that there were originally 50 applicants, so being one of the 11 chosen is such an honour for me. It was definitely a learning experience professionally - found a few mistakes I have been making - have been able to make a suggestion to my director on an issue that has been our achilles heel at the FMC site.

The coding test was long - 16 case studies and we had to code it like we were out in the field doing this study. We had to rework our brains to think 2006 coding standards and focusing only on the study goals for this study. After learning of some gliches they had to determine if we passed or failed - we learned about 1.5 hours before leaving that we had all passed!!!

So this means that I will be heading back to Ontario (BC and AB are the other two provinces taking part in the study) for the month of April. There are 17 hospitals in Ontario participating in the study. Each week I would be at a different hospital (as well as maybe with another coder) and I have to do at least 120 charts per day (about 24 per day). I had asked for Ontario as maybe on weekends I can visit family and friends that live in those areas.

I will do my best to keep my blog up to date while in Ontario.