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HIM SAC Meeting Minutes
10/24/2012
Attending
Absent
John Saito
Shannon Kelsey
Sarah Tillery
Ann Wenning
Linda Dawson
Judy Osswald
Jin Kim
Agenda Item 1: Student Intervention and use of CPN’s
Faculty raised concerns on students struggling in the program. Similar identifying factors are those
students with English as NOT their primary language and students who seem to struggle coping with life
struggles while taking classes.
The program has developed a screening process for new applications beginning next year, has made WR
121 a pre-requisite and will investigate further on providing a specific passing grade for MP 111 and
provide an incentive for students to take A/P before entering the program as a way to earn more points
during the screening process, increasing their potential of acceptance into the program. Sarah was going
to talk to Karen regarding the MP 111 and A/P incentive.
John also pointed out that we should establish a grading rubrics on the written essay portion of the
application process to insure intra-related reliability, meaning no variance in the scoring of the essay
based on two different instructor interpretation. He suggested that we contact ESOL on this topic. John
also brought up the “Student of Concern Form” and encourages faculty to use this form to identify
students that may be of concern before a crisis happens. He wants us to contact Sarah and him when we
complete these forms so they can evaluate each situation individually to decide what direction to follow.
Ann encourages faculty to use the CPN to communicate student progress concerns. Sarah mentioned
that the CPN is a good tool to use for documenting positive progress as well. John reminded us that
students who are on academic probation are responsible for contacting instructors on their progress.
This is to promote student accountability.
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Agenda Item 2: LAC Assessment follow-up
{Ann you will have to add here what the reason for the LAC assessments are for}
During spring term after the end of the first year of the HIM program Judy places a one year mock exam
into a course. This exam has comprehensive material reflective of the first HIM year. At the end of the
2nd year Ann had a comprehensive 2-year mock exam that she provided to the students. Starting spring
term of 2013, the comprehensive 2 year mock exam will be placed in the HIM 293 course where it will
be formatted by RHIT domains. Students will not be able to pass the course without completing the
mock exams. They assist the program in establishing areas of content that may need revised , as well as,
provides students feedback on what their strengths and weaknesses are as they prepare for the national
exam.
By having the mock exams in HIM 293, this supports the TSA related to Perkins funding because the
graduating assessment is based on students graduating from our program, not the RHIT national exam.
Agenda Item 3: Lecture/lab and workloads
Ann calculated the numbers and presented to the SAC that combining the lab/lecture courses versus
keeping them separate as they are now would reduce the work load calculations. This discussion was
brought up during the HIM/HI meeting where Ann and Judy stated to Sarah that the lab course credits
do not accurately reflect the instructor work load. It was thought that perhaps combing them would
create a more accurate picture, but it did not. The labs and HIM 293 currently do not reflect the amount
of instructor work load that is required in making them a successful part of the program. Sarah wants to
ensure that our workload is balanced between the HIM and HI students. The concern is that the strain of
having HI students taking HIM classes could potentially take away from the HIM students if we don’t find
a balance. After the HIM/HI meeting, we believe we have provided a balanced plan for the coming 20132014 year that will not overburden the faculty.
Agenda Item 4: Course Evaluations
The new course evaluations cannot be accessed through D2L at this time. All course evaluations
currently in D2L classes are old and we will need to provide instructions to our students on how they are
to access the course evaluation survey through their MyPCC. We didn’t have enough time to create
SAC/Instructor questions to add to the course evaluation for this term, but are aware we can add them
to future terms. Our question is, “What is the incentive to encourage students to do the course
evaluation?”
Agenda Item 5: Tracking Graduates
Our program did not have a system in place to track graduating students. In the past we relied on
students contacting us if they passed their RHIT exam and/or found job placement in the HIM field. Ann
is required to provide student statistics to the AHIMA based on graduate numbers and passing the RHIT.
AHIMA’s system in establishing pass rate statistics is currently unfairly skewed because not all students
take the exam soon after graduation. Some students never take the exam and those who wait over 6
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months to take the test, tend to fail the RHIT exam. Spring 2012 Judy created a demographic form to
assist her in the HIM 293 course. After getting the demographic worksheets from the students, Judy had
the administrative assistant compare the data to what was in the student’s current file. At the time, the
demographic form was serving the purpose of getting student ID’s mailed out to them for their
practicum sites. Based on that demographic form, Judy created an email list of graduating students of
2012. During the summer we received some emails of employment inquiries by organizations within the
Portland area. Judy sent out a mass email using the data she had collected in hopes of reaching graduate
students. We got a sporadic amount of student replies along with some mail failures as the student had
since changed their email account. With those that did respond, Judy realized it was advantageous to try
and pull additional information that was omitted from the original demographic for, such as, “did you
take the RHIT exam and if so, did you pass?”, “since graduation, have you found employment, if so
where and what is your title?”. This motivated an additional change in the demographic form that will
be presented in the HIM 293 course in Spring of 2013. The hope with the revised form, is it will provide
us a way to keep communication open with the students after they graduate and to provide Ann a way
to collect necessary data for the HIM program and to send out program surveys to recent graduates.
Agenda Item 6: Student Handbook
When HIM was on campus it had a handbook the clearly documented the program’s expectations. Once
it went online, the handbook was not used. Ann created a new handbook that has since been handed
out to all HIM students: first year, second year and part-time students. This handbook supports and
reaffirms was is stated on our syllabi student expectations, program passing requirements, grading
rubrics, late-work policies, background check requirements, etc. Thank you Ann!