Happy Valley FamilyMedicine is a mid-size physician practice, affiliated with anacademic medical center. There are three physicians in thepractice, along with three nurses, two physician assistants, and anoffice staff of four to handle appointments, billing, and otheroffice activities. Currently the practice still maintains apaper-based record system. The medical center has an electronicmedical record system and is in the process of requesting allaffiliated physician practices to adopt the same system, tofacilitate integrated records and a patient portal system.

The office manager,Betty Jones, has been employed with Dr. Ross for ten years. As anRN she enjoys interacting with the patients and physicians and isclinically quite knowledgeable, but does not favor the move to thenew practice system, which will require use of tablet computers forall data collection. She has expressed her opinion that “I want tolook at the patient, not this machine.”

In addition, the newsystem will permit Dr. Ross to better meet the requirements ofMeaningful Use legislation, but his staff needs to learn about thereporting requirements.

Dr. Ross has learnedthat the academic medical center has a new HIM supervisor, SherrySimon, RHIA, who is quite technologically savvy and has worked withother physician practices to help them with software and hardwareimplementation, as well as staff training on a variety of topics.Sherry has agreed to meet with Dr. Ross to determine if she canhelp.

What is the first stepSherry should take?

What four things canSherry do to help her understand what topics are required and thelevel of training needed.

What questions shouldshe ask Dr. Ross?