AHIMA Enters Multinational Arena to Support HIM Worldwide A...( Leading HIM profes...),Health

Leading HIM professional association in U.S. officially opens first Global Services Office

CHICAGO, July 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Health Information Management Association today announced the official opening of a Global Services Office in Brussels, Belgium, establishing itself as the first multinational membership association serving health information management professionals on a global scale. AHIMA selected Brussels, in part, because of the city's worldwide status as the European Union's hub for top decision-making institutions. However, the decision to extend its outreach globally was rooted in the Association's longstanding commitment to accurate health information internationally as the surest means of securing high quality healthcare. In addition, AHIMA sees its multinational outreach as the proper response to globalization trends and implications in healthcare including digitization, e-health, cross-border care, medical travel and telemedicine.

"We believe that viable health information management (HIM) is necessary for the safe delivery of effective, quality healthcare, and that it should be recognized and practiced around the world," said AHIMA President, Vera Rulon. "For awhile 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
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