AHIMA opens 79th annual convention

American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) president Bryon Pickard opened its 79th annual convention and exhibit at the Independence Mall in Philadelphia yesterday.

AHIMA, which is comprised of 51,000 members, recently proposed a 10-year strategy to transform and realign formal education in the field by 2016. The planned transformation is likely to be the focus of this year’s convention, which runs from through Oct. 11.

AHIMA is also launching a campaign promoting myPHR, a personal health record website provided as a free public service, at the convention. The online campaign targets senior citizens, parents of young children, home caregivers and chronically-ill patients.

At the convention, there are concurrent education programs and attendees can tour various healthcare organizations, such as the Albert Einstein Healthcare Network and The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

More than 200 vendors are exhibiting during the three-day event.

Robert M. Kolodner, MD, national coordinator for health information technology and Janet Dillione, president of the health services division of Siemens Medical Solutions, were Monday’s keynote speakers.

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