What Are YOU Reading? Book Recommendations by OHIMA Board Members

by Sandra Seabold, MBA, RHIA

“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers”  
Harry Truman

If you attend a conference, walk by a Barnes & Noble bookstore, or view LinkedIn – you’ll eventually be presented with a book recommendation.  During the OHIMA Annual Meeting, so many good books were recommended and the importance of reading and how those books had an impact on the presenters, we thought it would be interesting to see what books your OHIMA Board of Directors also recommends.  A couple members said, because they read records all day, sometimes it’s hard to sit down and read a healthcare related book, so there are a few other genres recommended for those in need of a lighter subject.  Such a variety… can’t wait to check these out!!

Recommended by Speakers

• The One Thing:  The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results Book by Gary Keller
• The Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
• Developing the Leader within You by John C. Maxwell
• Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves

Online Articles

• Harvard Business Review 
• Smart Brief- leadership subsection (FREE- delivered daily)
• Flip Board

“To read is to fly: it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the fruits of many inquiries.” 
A C Grayling, Financial Times (in a review of A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel)

 

Books

• Beyond Heroes: A Lean Management System for Healthcare - May 15, 2014 by Kim Barnas (common-sense lean book with great stories) 
• The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book) - Nov 7, 1997 by Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills (do good and help others)
• You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life Paperback – April 23, 2013 by Jen Sincero
• Creating Competitive Advantage by Janie L. Smith
• Unshakable by Tony Robbins (Investing)
• White Hot Truth by Danielle LaPorte (laugh-out-loud moments amidst an honest look at the relentless, exhausting, and often, counterproductive striving that happens when we work a bit too hard at being our 'best selves’)
• An American Sickness. How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take it Back by physician turned reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal (This book is for the patients who finds themselves navigating the complexities of our healthcare system. There is a chapter on Billing/Coding/Collections which many HIM professionals will find particularly compelling)
• Reinventing American Health Care. How the Affordable Care Act Will Improve our Terribly Complex, Blatantly Unjust, Outrageously Expensive, Grossly Inefficient, Error Prone System by Ezekiel J. Emanuel (Considering how the ACA/HITECH Acts really brought HIM to the forefront, how could this book be passed up? And how can anyone pass up that title? :-)  No matter what your opinion of Obamacare, health policy wonks will love this book)
• The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande
• Better by Atul Gawande
• Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
• Complications by Atul Gawande
• The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives by Theresa Brown, RN (Anyone interested in the world of nursing can gain perspective by following her shift on the oncology floor of a hospital. I found this a wonderful read while seeking a way to connect with patients from my isolated corner in the coding realm)
• The Patient Will See You Now by Eric Topol (Dr. Topol's take on the future of  health care in the digital age)
• The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype, and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine’s Computer Age by Bob Wachter (for anyone working in or interested in Health IT/Health Informatics)
• The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman (Riveting read and cultural perspective on health care from the eyes of others. I discovered and read this book while working as a medical interpreter--a position that requires an understanding of how people from other cultures view and define healthcare)
• If Disney Ran Your Hospital: 9 ½ Things You Would Do Differently by Fred Lee (It shifts the perspective of hospitals and Disney from providing “services” to providing “experiences” which ties into the patient experience and satisfaction focus in healthcare.  The book also concentrates on service excellence, performance improvement, and patient satisfaction)
• The Crucial Conversations:  Tools for talking when Stakes are high and Crucial Confrontations (good tools for developing leadership and communication/relationship skills)
•  The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success by Masaaki Imai, Kaizen (very influential)

 

Books for Fun 

• The All Girls Filling Station Reunion by Fannie Flagg (light read for summertime with some historical aspects to it) 
• Anything by David Sedaris

Thank you Sara Butz, Dee Mandley, Paula Warren, Peggy Kilty, Carol Barnes, and Janice White for your wonderful book recommendations.  Happy Reading!

Even if the book isn’t “healthcare” related, remember…..

“The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” 
Dr. Seuss, "I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!"