Elizabeth “Lisa” Wild, RHIA, CHPS, has been working in the HIM field for over 30 years. As Senior Manager of the Privacy Program at Rochester Regional Health for the past seven years she says, “I can’t say I fell into the position. I kind of ran into it.” Like many HIM professionals, Lisa was first drawn to coding. “In college I loved coding and I loved data.” She earned her Bachelors of Science degree in Medical Records Administration from Ithaca College. Her first job after graduation was an Interim Coder position at a small hospital in Wellsville, NY. She remembers carrying around 3 large coding books, reading paper documentation, and longing for human interaction. The interim position allowed her to apply for other jobs. She knew right then and there that she wasn’t going to apply to be a coder “because I think I would have died!”
“I love legal, I love data, I love patient care, and I love people.” Lisa wishes more people would share her enthusiasm for the field of Privacy. Lisa has held several managerial positions throughout her career. The first job she landed after college was Supervisor of Operations at Oswego Hospital. Two years later, she moved out of state to South Carolina to become the Director of Medical Records at Newberry County Memorial Hospital. In 1995, she moved to the Washington, DC area where she was the Director of Medical Records at Laurel Regional Health in Laurel, MD for a number of years. After starting a family, she became homesick and moved back to Rochester for a part-time job with Lifetime Medical Health Group as a HIM Manager. She remained there for about nine years as she raised her family. In April 2008, she joined Rochester General Health System and started out in HIM and held different operation management positions.
“HIM and privacy go hand in hand.” The privacy component of HIM piqued Lisa’s interest. Almost every job she held involved some degree of confidentiality or access issues. In 2003, while employed at Lifetime Medical Health Group, Lisa was involved in writing policies and procedures from the ground up for revisions to the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules. At Rochester General Health System, each area HIM manager had some responsibility for auditing access. The impending merger between Rochester General Health System and Unity Health System made Lisa think the newly formed systems would branch off and have its own privacy program. So, she started to study for AHIMA’s certification in Healthcare Privacy and Security (CHPS). In 2015, Lisa was approached by the Vice President of Risk Management asking why she did not apply for the newly created Manager of Privacy position. Lisa was very grateful this “dream” position.
Lisa transitioned to the Manager of Privacy Program for Rochester Regional Health and had a lead role in designing a system-wide program from scratch. Lisa, who loves to teach, focused on educating the patients, participating in employee safety fairs, privacy awareness activities and designing creative games. “We had fun with it.” The Privacy Program team also audits information exchange outside of the EMR environment with four area RHIOs: Rochester RHIO, HealtheLink (Western NY), HealtheConnections (Central NY), and Hixny (Capital and Northern NY).
In addition, there are new privacy laws on the horizon from New York State and the federal government. New York State is looking to pass stricter privacy laws similar to California’s CCPA as it pertains to personal information, not just healthcare. There is a serious push to enact comprehensive U.S. federal privacy law similar to Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy law. “My days of HIPAA narrow focus may soon come to an end with these new privacy laws.”
In her role as Senior Privacy Program Manager Lisa has plenty opportunity for human interaction. She is responsible for administrative planning and policy, access granting, and manages contractual obligations with vendors through business associate agreements. She interfaces with several internal departments including Purchasing, Legal, Information Technology (IT), Human Resources (HR), and all the managers anywhere in the system where there is access to information. Lisa is involved with investigating and follow through of legal matters concerning access violations. She works closely with the IT department. She lets them handle the technical, computerized side of HIPAA while she takes care of the human side of HIPAA. “It’s a good marriage.” Lisa assists and collaborates with HIM regarding Release of Information (ROI) compliance. She also spends a lot of time educating the public on patient rights and how their information is used.
“I believe it is my duty to help build the culture where patients feel safe that their information will be kept confidential.” Open notes and patient health portals, such as Rochester Regional Health’s MyCare, although a great communication tool between patients and providers, have opened up a whole new world of challenges. Patients can see real time data that they may not necessarily agree with or find to be erroneous. Whole departments have been created to manage problems with health care portals. “Patient access has rocked our (privacy) world, so to speak.”
Lisa loves her career choice and wonders why more people do not pursue a career in privacy. “At one point there were only nine CHPS in the whole state of New York.” She encourages students and HIM professionals to think broader than HIM. “It goes far beyond coding and filing. If you like law, if you like technology, if you like people, take a look at CHPS because it is a very rewarding and interesting field . . . and it’s only growing.” Rochester Regional Health‘s Privacy Program team is growing too. Being the manager of the Privacy Program has its own set of challenges inherent to the position. There are constant changes in regulations, financial concerns, and time constraints. In contrast, the most rewarding part about working in HIM is the “closeness of the people we work with. They may move to a different position or facility, but you still keep in contact. The networking is great. The resources are great. People seem to always be willing to help each other out.” In her spare time Lisa enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, being outdoors, and gardening.
Protecting patients’ privacy is certainly challenging in today’s world and it is what drives Lisa’s passion for her job. In her own words she explains why privacy inspires her:
“During my 30 plus years as a HIM professional, privacy has been at the core of my values. If patients lack trust in us and fear the risk of judgment, embarrassment and/or stigma, they will be less likely to disclose information to their provider or seek care altogether. It is my purpose to have our patients confident that their information will be protected and secure.”
Carol Manfreda, RHIT
