SMART Goals

by Kristi Fahy, RHIA

 

Hi, my name is Kristi Fahy and I am one of your OHIMA Board Directors! A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend the AHIMA Leadership Symposium Virtually… and it was pretty awesome!!

We’re all connected in more remote ways than ever and although this event was not in person this year, it was surprisingly super engaging! From fun uplifting music while we all logged in and during breaks, to the speakers sharing their webcams, to hundreds of live chats between all of the board members across the country, this event still felt welcoming and inspiring!

The Leadership Symposium is an event to bring together leadership from all of the component state associations of AHIMA to discuss what we can do to drive positive change in our profession. COVID, aside, our profession is in the midst of change and it’s important that we reimagine, rebound and renew to take us to the future.

As you can imagine, we talked a lot about how we are in such a wild time where we have to navigate how to plan for the future, which as many of us know, is unknown. One of the main themes I gathered from the leadership symposium is that change is here and we must change with it!!

Adaptability is embedded in what we do! HIM professionals quickly innovated in response to COVID. And now that we KNOW it can be done, what’s to stop us from future innovation? Although the circumstances weren’t ideal this time around, we’ve learned just how resilient we are and it’s going to set the scene for moving forward.

During the leadership symposium, we discussed what we can do to drive the change and position ourselves for the future. Having SMART goals to put pen to paper helped us lay out our thoughts and come up with an initial game plan.

SMART stands for:

Specific – what do we want to do – what is your goal?

Measurable – how can we measure success in achieving that goal

Achievable—is it possible

Realistic—can we realistically achieve it

Timely—when do you want to achieve it

This is an exercise we should all consider doing whenever we have a goal in mind. But starting with OHIMA, we wanted to come up with ways to better engage members while providing a wealth of knowledge and interactive resources! This is one of our S (specific) goals—starting with this video blog!

People, specifically HIM professionals, LOVE experiences and LOVE to have fun. Do you know what HIM professionals also love? What they do for a living! So why not mix the two together? This will be a focal point, driving engagement and bringing innovative education to the HIM profession… and making it fun at the same time. This is something you will start seeing now, in a more virtual manner, and in the future when we can all come back together—in person!!!

But my overall takeaway is that even though the future is unknown, the HIM profession is more united than ever and if we can leverage that strength and increase access to resources and our professional networks, we can keep evolving and be the best versions of ourselves. I encourage everyone to put pen to paper and write down your SMART goals and get after them! Thank you OHIMA!

  

About the Author 

Kristi Fahy, RHIA is currently a elected Board Director overseeing the CDI strategy on the OHIMA FY20-21 Board of Directors. Kristy is a DVS Account Executive with Dolbey Fusion.