By Healthcare Facilities Today

Today's health information managers are well-positioned to drive future data governance and decision-making, according to an article in the September issue of the Journal of AHIMA (American Health Information Management Association). The more data healthcare organizations gather, the more complex the stories therein become, thus the more essential it is to have an effective narrator for that information.

As the demand for data expands exponentially, HIM professionals will increasingly be called upon to harness data's power, explain its context, and help to ensure its integrity, according to the article.

Many new job titles and functions, including terminology analyst, data reporting analyst, informatics reporting analyst, data governance analyst and data mapping specialist, are becoming more common.

AHIMA reported that many HIM professionals are poised to blossom into business analysts or data scientists – because "those interested in data scientist roles typically possess higher-level statistical and IT knowledge to understand data architecture."

"In today's unprecedented climate of exponential data growth," AHIMA CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon said in a related press release, "HIM professionals are well situated to drive information governance and contribute to sound decision-making through analytics and decision support."

Read the article.