Below is a press release from the Alliance for Nursing Informatics and although they address a nurses role, the same holds true for all diabetes educators!!
It’s Time to Ask for…your Personal Health Records
The Alliance for Nursing Informatics includes 30 member organizations and more than 5,000 nurses
CHICAGO (Sept. 7, 2012) – The Alliance for Nursing Informatics wants its members to ask for and access their personal health records as part of a collaborative effort to Ask for Your e-Health Record. During National Health IT Week: September 10-14, all ANI organizations will join forces to ask their members, nurses and clinical colleagues to reach out for their own digital medical information. “Nurses know that e-health records help them provide the right information to the right people – especially patients and their families – at the point of care. To promote accessible e-health records, nurses like me should request a copy of our own record and, in turn, better manage our own health care" says Mary Wakefield, Administrator, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
The TEN Steps to Support the ANI eHealth Pledge provides guidance taking the pledge and involving others in the week-long activities. This pledge for nurses is part of the Consumer Campaign, from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), to involve and empower consumers in their health management through the use of information technology.
“This grassroots effort goes to the foundation of quality healthcare by asking nurses, who provide care to so many people in many different healthcare settings, to take the lead by requesting their personal health information,” says Joyce Sensmeier, MS, RN-BC, CPHIMS, FHIMSS, FAAN, vice president, informatics, HIMSS. “By spreading the word to colleagues and consumers through the Ask for Your e-Health Record campaign, we can help educate the general public on the value of health IT by encouraging them to ask for their own patient health information.”
The Ask for Your e-Health Record campaign is a social media campaign designed to encourage conversations, raise awareness and accelerate the overall interest in the pledge and related activities. “Nurses’ participation is crucial to this campaign because they touch every
kind of patient seen in every venue of care and have traditionally served a patient advocacy role.
So when nurses get experience in managing their own health using IT, they can share their
firsthand experience and knowledge with the patients and families they serve, and a big impact
could quickly be made” says Judy Murphy, RN, FACMI, FHIMSS, FAAN, deputy national
coordinator for programs and policies at ONC.
For more information,
• Download ANI’s pledge to support the ONC’s Consumer Health eProgram;
• Take the pledge on ANI’s eHealth Facebook page; or
• Follow the discussion on Twitter at #Ask4YourRecord.
ANI is co-sponsored by AMIA and HIMSS to represent nursing informatics with a unified voice,
while providing synergy and structure needed to advance the efforts of nursing informatics
professionals in improving delivery of patient care. ANI represents more than 5,000 nurses,
brings together 30 district nursing informatics groups, integrates nurses from a broad swath of
academia, practice, industry, and a variety of specialty areas, working collaboratively with nearly
three million nurses who currently practice in the United States today. Visit the ANI website for
more information.
AMIA, the leading professional association for informatics professionals, serves as the voice of
the nation’s top biomedical and health informatics professionals and plays an important role in
medicine, health care, and science, encouraging the use of data, information and knowledge to
improve both human health and delivery of healthcare services. More about AMIA is online at
www.amia.org.
About HIMSS
HIMSS is a cause-based, not-for-profit organization exclusively focused on providing global leadership for the optimal use of information technology (IT) and management systems for the betterment of healthcare. Founded 51 years ago, HIMSS and its related organizations are headquartered in Chicago with additional offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. HIMSS represents more than 44,000 individual members, of which more than two thirds work in healthcare provider, governmental and not-for-profit organizations. HIMSS also includes over 570 corporate members and more than 170 not-for-profit organizations that share our mission of transforming healthcare through the effective use of information technology and management systems. HIMSS frames and leads healthcare practices and public policy through its content expertise, professional development, research initiatives, and media vehicles designed to promote information and management systems’ contributions to improving the quality, safety, access, and cost-effectiveness of patient care. To learn more about HIMSS and to find out how to join us and our members in advancing our cause, please visit our website at www.himss.org.
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For more information, contact:
Joyce Lofstrom/HIMSS
312-915-9237 jlofstrom@himss.org