AHDI Members Cast Powerful Vote for Change

AHDI voting members approved bylaws that reflect an association reshaping plan developed and approved by the AHDI House of Delegates at its 2010 Annual Meeting. After nearly two years of assessment, strategic planning, town hall listening sessions, and negotiations, the membership approved essential bylaws that create a National Leadership Board, puts stringent voting requirements into the bylaws, and clearly outlines the roles and responsibilities of the National Leadership Board and membership.

The membership vote required a minimum of 500 votes with a two-thirds majority to pass the bylaws changes. Voter turnout was 18.55% of the eligible voting membership. This is significant considering that AHDI historically receives only 6% to 9% of voters for national elections. With 66.67% affirmative votes needed to pass, the following was recorded:

• Bylaws Revision 1 - 89.25%
• Bylaws Revision 2 - 75.72%
• Bylaws Revision 3 - 90.47%

Last August, the House of Delegates created a Strategic Initiatives workgroup to identify and develop key organization—wide priorities that will assist local, state, and regional components in becoming more externally visible and better aligned across the association. Tool kits, now outlined in the Strategic Initiatives Blue Prints, will assist component leaders in becoming successful and generate more awareness of the contributions documentation professionals make to the healthcare delivery system, especially at a time when this sector is undergoing major transformation. In addition to the Strategic Initiatives workgroup, a Bylaws workgroup prepared the bylaws with legal counsel provided by Downey Brand LLP. In the coming months, the House of Delegates will refine the bylaws based on the membership vote and update the policies and procedures to ensure alignment with the new structure.

The House of Delegates will review the voting results and begin plans for the next phase of implementing the reshaping plan at its March 9 online meeting. There will be a series of leadership meetings to discuss the implementation roll out with local, state, regional, and online components. Information will be announced in the upcoming weeks. We encourage you to reach out to the House of Delegates and Board of Directors if you have questions regarding the vote.

Reshaping AHDI: Be an Informed Voter

At the 2010 House of Delegates meeting, the House passed a resolution that calls for a reshaping of the association to meet the needs of our members and components. The association and profession must continue to evolve in the face of greater electronic health information exchange and the emerging technologies that will impact the practice of the documentation professional.

Since the vote at the August 2010 House of Delegates meeting, two steering committees were created to implement the reshaping plan. The Strategic Initiatives Steering Committee developed purpose-driven affiliation agreements to spur on greater innovation and collaboration among components and alliances in promoting credentialing, education, advocacy, and member development. The Bylaws and Policies & Procedures Steering Committee drafted bylaws to restructure the AHDI Board of Directors and House of Delegates into one National Leadership Board by ACE 2011. The board will consist of 12 to 14 at-large and district directors voted in by the general membership and corresponding districts, respectively.

Thanks to Carolinas Delegate Loretta Foulkrod who led the Strategic Initiatives committee and Texas Delegate Cynthia Alder, CMT, RHIT, AHDI-F, who chaired the Bylaws and Policies & Procedures committee. Members were invited to listen in on bi-weekly sessions as well as review the work in progress on a collaborative wiki. Extended terms for the 2010 Speaker of the House, Speaker-elect, and delegates during this period of transition was be put into effect.

As we prepare for an upcoming vote on changes to the association bylaws to reshape AHDI, we will update the website on January 19, 2011, with information to assist you in making an informed voting decision. Voting polls will open at that time and eligible members will have until February 28, 2011, to vote on the bylaws revision.

Town Hall meetings are scheduled for members to hear from Association leaders on the Reshaping AHDI plan. Please feel free to register for any of the following Town Hall meetings to ask questions about the program.

January 25 at 5 p.m. Eastern
February 3 at 6 p.m. Eastern
February 9 at 6 p.m. Eastern
February 17 at 6 p.m. Eastern

We encourage you to talk to your delegate, component officers, Board members, and the staff to ask questions and to learn about the reshaping plan. You may also reach the AHDI Member Relations Department by tel: 1-800-982-2182 or 1-209-527-9620, or by email: ahdi@ahdionline.org.

HOD End-of-the-Year Educational Session is Open to all Members

AHDI's final HOD educational session for the year is November 19th at 3:30 p.m. PST/6:30 p.m. EST. We will discuss the new Universal Bylaws and Model Policy and Procedures being distributed to all components, which will go into effect on January 1, 2010. This will be an informative session on how to implement the new bylaws/procedures to provide you with resources to assist you as you make the change.

We will also be discussing the Bylaws Amendment that has been submitted to the HOD to ratify. This amendment will change the terms of our board members from a calendar year to an ACE-to-ACE term. Register now for this meeting.

AHDI Announces Newly Elected Leaders

AHDI is proud to announce these newly elected directors, who will serve from 2010-2012:

Sherry Doggett
Brett McCutcheon, CMT, AHDI-F
Lisa Johnson Williams, CMT, AHDI-F

We are also happy to announce the Speaker-elect for the House of Delegates for 2009:

Chad Sines, AHDI-F

Thank you, elected leaders and candidates, for your commitment to excellence and support of the Association through advocacy, standards-setting, and education. Thank you, AHDI members, who took the time to cast your votes and help to shape the future of the association and industry. On behalf of AHDI members, board of directors and staff, we congratulate you!

HOD Meeting on July 29 in Nashville

The annual face-to-face meeting of the House of Delegates will be held on Wednesday, July 29, in Nashville. The meeting begins at 8 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m. We have a packed agenda of association business items and educational presentations planned throughout the day.

New to this year’s agenda will be over two hours in the afternoon devoted to reveal some of the excellent work that has been done by a few of our component associations to accomplish our national initiatives. Representatives from these component associations will talk about which of the initiatives they chose, why they picked that one, how they did it, and what they gained from it. There will also be an opportunity for questions, as others can learn from the experiences that are shared.

We firmly believe that participation in national initiatives not only serves the national association in accomplishing important established goals, but that when this commitment involves our grassroots members it can unite the component association membership with a greater focus and purpose.

If you’re in Nashville on July 29, or arriving that day, come and join us at the HOD meeting—where you will see volunteers in action!