On my way home...soon

Well hard to believe that 5 weeks have gone by already. March 30th seems so long ago, but my time participating with this year's CIHI Reabstraction study has been a good one. I definitely have learned alot and found some things interesting on how different hospitals are capturing data.

For many you might not know what coding are encompasses. We do follow national set coding standards for all the diseases and procedures that one might face during a hospital stay. As much as we are trying to be universal - it does come down to how physicians dictate or document their reports and then how we interpret them and how we look them up in our coding systems. Sounds confusing I guess to some of you. Another positive participating is meeting other health information management professionals (HIM Professional) at the hospitals I have gone too and the other reabstractors I have worked with. It really is a small world - here at Sick Kids - a lady Diane Duggan who used to work at the Foothills hospital in Calgary. Our IT contact for the reabstracting study was originally from Thunder Bay!!

Overall, this whole experience has been positive and I would not hesitate to put my name forward to future studies (I just have to share the experience with any of my Calgary coworkers if they wish to go too). Personally, I did feel by the end of this study (5 weeks), I am looking forward seeing my friends, coworkers and oh - to see if my house is sit standing (haha - I know Averill is doing a good job taking care of it). Sick Kids charts have definitely been challenging so you can say that I am ending this experience with a bang!