Awc (Ahima World Congress) Organizational Membership

Support for Organizations to Focus on Quality of Clinical Documentation for Improved Patient Care, Reimbursement Revenue, and Professional Development

Chicago, USA, 28 January…The AWC Organizational Membership (AWC OM) program is designed to help healthcare providers, healthcare service organizations, and government/nonprofit agencies achieve excellence in the healthcare core competencies of clinical documentation, medical coding, health data analytics, health informatics, and privacy and security.
Al Ain Hospital, a 402-bed acute care and emergency hospital, in the UAE became AWC’s first organizational member in the UAE. The hospital is one of 12 hospitals in the SEHA (Abu Dhabi Health Services Company) system, which is the largest healthcare network in the UAE. SEHA owns and operates all public hospitals and clinics in the emirate. Al Ain Hospital has more than 35 specialist departments, more than 300 doctors, and more than 20,000 inpatient and 320,000 outpatient visits annually. Al Ain will work with AWC to focus on quality clinical documentation.

“Al Ain Hospital is pleased to join AWC and looks forward to working with the AHIMA/AWC team to continue to fulfill our mission of serving our community by providing quality patient care with a focus on clinical excellence,” stated Humaid Amhi Al Mansouri, Al Ain Hospital CEO, at the time of the announcement last June. “AHIMA is the worldwide leader in quality healthcare information and we are eager to partner as an organizational member of AWC to achieve excellence within our organization on AHIMA Best Practices for clinical documentation.”

Implementation of Al Ain’s AWC OM began in July with AWC conducting online surveys of Al Ain’s coding, physicians, HIM, finance and revenue cycle teams to assess the organization’s current documentation processes. Additionally, AHIMA clinical documentation improvement (CDI) experts visited the hospital to interview key Al Ain leadership and review a sample of the hospital’s records for current documentation practices. A training for the coding team was also conducted.

The information gathered from these sources was compiled into a gap analysis and presented to hospital leadership along with recommendation for improvement, implementation of best practices and sustainability.

To ensure the implementation and sustainability of the best practices, AWC experts conducted customized trainings for a multi-disciplinary Core Sustainability Team and Al Ain’s internal trainers.  Additionally, AWC experts hold monthly support call with Al Ain’s internal trainers and review sample medical records to respond to and address any questions or concerns.

Al Ain Hospital was also presented with a “Trained by AHIMA” seal of excellence (Bronze Level) to showcase its commitment to quality clinical documentation.  The digital seal is displayed on the AWC website and may be used by Al Ain on its website and marketing collateral.

“With the first step of our membership now complete―a gap analysis done by the AWC team members―we are now well on our way to making major improvements in quality patient care and the revenue cycle,” states Mansouri. “The results so far have been both eye opening and groundbreaking.”

Al Ain Hospital is set to differentiate itself among local healthcare providers, customers, and the regional workforce through its participation in this innovative three-year program. In year’s two and three, AWC will continue to assess Al Ain’s sustainability of the best practices, including the quality of documentation in the medical record and increased revenue opportunities. The “Trained by AHIMA” seal of excellence will be renewed, showing the hospital’s level of excellence.

“I and the entire AWC/AHIMA team are excited to work with Al Ain Hospital to continue to assess opportunities within their organization to implement Best Practices in Healthcare Information,” said AWC Global Managing Director Alexandre Bouché. “We applaud Al Ain for their foresight in selecting Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI) as their initial area of focus. AWC case studies reveal accurate clinical documentation has a positive impact on patient care, health record quality, and revenue cycle management, and we look forward to supporting and training Al Ain’s employees on proven AHIMA Best Practices in this core competency.”

To learn more about AWC OM and how it can help your organization, stop by the AHIMA World Congress – AWC booth (#H1.G03) at Arab Health and pick up the Al Ain Case Study. You can also view a short video at www.awc.world/org-member/ or contact Alexandre Bouche, [email protected].