Health Information Technologists and Medical Registrars

Health Information Technologists and Medical Registrars typically perform the following tasks: • Assign the patient to diagnosis-related groups (DRGs), using appropriate computer software. • Compile medical care and census data for statistical reports on diseases treated, surgery performed, or use of hospital beds. • Design databases to support healthcare applications, ensuring security, performance and reliability. • Develop in-service educational materials. • Evaluate and recommend upgrades or improvements to existing computerized healthcare systems. • Facilitate and promote activities, such as lunches, seminars, or tours, to foster healthcare information privacy or security awareness within the organization. • Identify, compile, abstract, and code patient data, using standard classification systems. • Manage the department or supervise clerical workers, directing or controlling activities of personnel in the medical records department. • Monitor changes in legislation and accreditation standards that affect information security or privacy in the computerized healthcare system. • Plan, develop, maintain, or operate a variety of health record indexes or storage and retrieval systems to collect, classify, store, or analyze information. • Prepare statistical reports, narrative reports, or graphic presentations of information, such as tumor registry data for use by hospital staff, researchers, or other users. • Protect the security of medical records to ensure that confidentiality is maintained. • Resolve or clarify codes or diagnoses with conflicting, missing, or unclear information by consulting with doctors or others or by participating in the coding team's regular meetings. • Retrieve patient medical records for physicians, technicians, or other medical personnel. • Train medical records staff. • Write or maintain archived procedures, procedural codes, or queries for applications.