AHIMA opens Brussels Office

The American Health Information Management Association has announced the official opening of a global services office in Brussels.

AHIMA says the move will enable it to establish itself as “the first multinational membership association serving health information management professionals on a global scale”.

AHIMA says the opening of the Brussels office forms part of a global outreach strategy “rooted in the Association’s longstanding commitment to accurate health information internationally as the surest means of securing high quality healthcare”.

In a statement, AHIMA said that multinational outreach was the necessary response to globalisation trends and implications in healthcare including digitisation, e-health, cross-border care, medical travel and telemedicine.

The organisation represents more than 53,000 specially educated Health Information Management professionals in the United States and around the world. Like its larger rival the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, which has also opened a Brussels office, AHIMA is based in Chicago.

“We believe that viable health information management (HIM) is necessary for the safe delivery of effective, quality healthcare, and that it should be recognised and practiced around the world,” said AHIMA president, Vera Rulon.

“For a while now, AHIMA has been actively looking into new development opportunities that promise to serve healthcare consumers as well as the greater healthcare community.” Rulon said just as important is the ability of AHIMA’s transnational outreach to advance HIM’s industry standards, grow its certified workforce, and accredit the educational systems required to advance the HIM practice around the globe.

AHIMA chief of operations, Sandy Fuller, said AHIMA is also committed to the worldwide promotion and advocacy of high quality research, best practices and effective standards in health information and to actively contributing to the development and advancement of health information professionals worldwide.

“AHIMA believes that close collaboration with similar organisations focused on healthcare can leverage the debate and bring strength to the non-governmental sector,” said Fuller. “AHIMA is committed to the advancement of health information in an increasingly electronic and global environment through leadership in advocacy, education, certification, and lifelong learning.”

Through the newly established office, AHIMA looks to further develop new business opportunities and build collaborative relationships as well as monitor the global health information environment. AHIMA says the Brussels office will provide first hand access to information and decision-making processes across Europe, and is at the same time a central point of development for future activities worldwide.

Rob Nelson, AHIMA’s managing director and vice president of business development and strategy, said: “AHIMA can offer excellent benefits for international members as we tailor products and services to better serve the needs of global partners. We want to be able to learn and share our best practices as a means of further advancing the health Information management profession, in general through a global community of learning and practice.”

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