Information technology was top of mind at two conferences held by major industry organizations last month. The American Health Information Management Association met in Denver for its convention and exhibition Oct. 7-12. The Medical Group Management Association met in Las Vegas for its annual conference Oct. 22-25.

David Brailer, MD, the nation’s former healthcare IT czar, urged AHIMA members to be prepared for the change in their profession that would inevitably come with increasing adoption of IT.

“You are at a flexion point,” he told his audience of hundreds of coders, health information managers and analysts, all members of an association that was founded in 1928 to improve the quality of medical records.

Technology is important, but the quality of the data is critical whether in paper or digital form, he suggested. He urged them to “continue to lead” and to make their efforts “larger, louder and faster.”

“We must redouble our efforts,” Linda Kloss, chief executive of AHIMA,  said later. William F. Jessee, MD, president and CEO of the MGMA, participated in a panel at the AHIMA convention. He reiterated part of his message at the MGMA meeting in Las Vegas.

With doctors facing an average 5 percent cut in Medicare reimbursement in 2007, the $32,600 estimated cost per physician to adopt an EMR, plus additional annual costs for maintenance, is off-putting, said Jessee.