Many health information management professionals need to increase their data analytic skills in order to stay relevant at their facility, according to Richard Averill, senior vice president of clinical and economic research at 3M Health Information Systems.

Averill, a principal researcher for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services who helped create the DRG system, explains in this audio interview that as the healthcare industry moves to digital data, HIM professionals must move with it.

Steps must be taken to move HIM to a “real health information manager… who is the go-to person in the institution for manipulating that information and producing reports, interpreting the reports,” Averill says.

The profession is currently leaving a data analytic void in healthcare facilities that they should be preparing to fill. “HIM needs to move from the keeper of the information to the user, or at least the conduit for the user of the information,” Averill says.

This interview, recorded with Journal of AHIMA Editor-in-Chief Chris Dimick during the 84th AHIMA Convention and Exhibit in October, is the second of a four part series that will appear on this site each week in December.