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They hail from diverse backgrounds and all corners of the country. They've each made huge strides, some have overcome challenges and all have met their goals. They continue to shine in the HIM field. We scoured the industry to hunt down the Top 10 in HIM, highlighting the HIM professionals who are making a difference in their respective HIM niches. Read their stories here, and listen to audio files of interviews below and in the pages that follow. Also, don't miss our Top 10 Fact Sheet and a chance to find out what the Top 10 feel the top HIM issues will be in 2009.
Deborah Grider, CPC, CPC-H, CPC-I, CPC-P, COBGC, CEMC, CCS-P
Like many of the women on our list, Grider, president of Deborah Grider and Associates and president of the American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC) National Advisory Board, sort of fell into the HIM field. A vacancy opened up in the physicians' office she  worked in 3 decades ago, and Grider was handed HIM tasks. "I just really enjoyed it, and from there, my career just exploded," Grider recalled.
Exploded indeed. After stumbling into the HIM profession by accident, Grider also started her writing career as somewhat of a fluke. She'd written a handout for an AAPC conference, and someone from the American Medical Association (AMA) approached her. The AMA representative liked the style of the handout, and asked Grider if she'd be interested in penning a book. Now, several books later (it got a lot easier after the first one, she admitted), Grider is writing on a book on ICD-10 that will likely be published in time for the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) conference in October. That book will be written for physicians, but she's also writing the Principles of ICD-10 Coding, directed toward coders as well as anyone who wants to bone up on the upcoming ICD-10 code set.
When she's not typing away for her next book, Grider jets around the country for her consulting business. She does reviews of records, performs audits and does audio conferences and training workshops. ADVANCE spoke with her while she was in Salt Lake City preparing for future ICD-10 sessions, and she was also working on a legal case with a group of attorneys. No day is ever quite like another--and that's the way Grider prefers it. "You have to be able to jump from one project to another, and there's never a dull moment," Grider explained. "There's always something new. You're always learning."
Right Click Here to download the mp3 file, Interview with Deborah Grider
Allison Viola, MBA, RHIA
With an HIT background, Viola saw her fair share of EHR implementations. She took the road less traveled in HIM, never working directly for an HIM department. She's proud of her non-traditional route, a mix of a business background and HIT experience, and  recalled the excitement of finding a position that had her name written all over it--director of federal relations with AHIMA.
As Congress, the president and federal agencies work to come up with new initiatives that will affect the HIM and health care realm, Viola works with aides, along with many others from agencies and in the health care industry, striving to get the HIM agenda on the table. She worked on the American Health Information Community Successor and has concentrated her efforts of late on analyzing the ICD-10 final rule. Viola is helping AHIMA make a footprint in the health care quality realm, and she worked on a position statement on data stewardship, something AHIMA is trying to bring to the forefront.
Viola, who works right in the nation's capital, finds gratification in educating others about the HIM field and letting them know how important it is for HIM professionals to be part of major policy decisions in health care. Her advice? "Look at everything as an opportunity to learn, good or bad," Viola said. "You might have gone through a bad situation at work, but take a step back and ask, 'What did I learn from this?'"
Right Click Here to download the mp3 file, Interview with Allison Viola
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