How to Use the AHIMA Body of Knowledge

What Are You Looking For?

In a hurry to find information? To quickly locate resources in the AHIMA Body of Knowledge, type a word or words into the Quick Search box on the Main page.

More interested in browsing through all the information on a particular subject? From the Main page you can bring up lists of content grouped in HIM Topics folders.

Want to see the newest content added to the Library? Click on the Quick Search button without entering any search criteria.

Need to locate a particular item, such as a Journal article, practice brief, or AHIMA position statement? In other words, do you know the title or source of the piece of content you are searching for? If so, it's generally fastest to use the options on the Advanced Search page.

How to Search

    Additional Help



    Main Page

    Quick Search
    (and Full-text Search)

    To perform a Quick Search (or Full-text Search), enter words or phrases in the box provided and hit enter or click the "quick search" button.

    After doing a Quick Search, the content list on the Search Results page will be sorted by publication date, with the most recently published documents appearing first. If you wish to change the way
    your results are sorted, you must start your search on the Advanced Search page.

    Combining Search Terms

    You can combine search terms with Boolean operators such as AND, OR, and NOT to refine your searches.

    Type in these strings of words:

    To find documents that contain:

    privacy OR confidentiality OR release of information

    Any of the words/phrases privacy, confidentiality, or release of information

    privacy standards AND hipaa AND states

    All of the words/phrases privacy standards, HIPAA, and states

    reimbursement, financing, health insurance

    Any of the words/phrases reimbursement, financing, and health insurance.

    coding NOT hospital

    The word coding but not the word hospital.

    Wildcards

    Common wildcards available for Quick and Full-text Searches.

    • an asterisk * specifies zero or more alphanumeric characters. For example:
      • Entering *disclosure returns documents with words ending with disclosure, such as redisclosure and nondisclosure
      • Entering manag* returns any documents with words beginning with manag, such as manager, managed, managing, and management
    • a question mark ? specifies one alphanumeric character. For example:
      • Entering organi?ation returns documents using either spelling, organization or organisation

    Browse by Topic

    Browse the entire contents of AHIMA Body of Knowledge using the HIM Topic Folders on the Main page.

    • Click on a closed folder icon to show subfolders. Within each subfolder are links to content and more subfolders. Click on the open folder to close it.
    • Click on the title of a folder to see a list of content related to that topic. The list will be sorted by publication date, with the most recently published content appearing first. Then, view each piece by clicking on its title.
    Advanced Search Page

    Advanced Search offers both Field and Full-text searching, and you can focus your search by using a combination of the two. Whichever search you use, you can also select how you want your results displayed on the Search Results page.

    Field Search

    Use the Field Search engine to specify the author, all or part of a title, source, setting, specialty area, and/or publication date of the content you seek. This is the fastest way to search if you know which document you are looking for. Type text into any of the search field boxes, or select search terms from the drop-down boxes when available. Then click "search" or hit "enter."

    Note: Filling in more boxes will lead to more precise results, though it also increases the chances that some pieces of relevant content will be omitted.

    Title
    • If the title has an initial article (i.e., "The," "A" or "An"), omit it when entering a search phrase.
    • If the title contains a "?", either omit the question mark or change the search option from "contains" to "substring"
    • If you type or copy text into the title field, make sure there isn't a space at the end of the title.
    • It is not necessary to enter the entire title. Generally, a few words will be sufficient.
    Author
    • To search by author name, enter the author's last name or last name, first name, or last name, first initial. For example:
      • Enter Hughes
      • Enter Hughes, Gwen
      • Enter Hughes, G
    Publication Date
    • Dates must be entered in the following form: m/d/yy
    • If you want to search a range of dates, you should use both the "From" and "To" date boxes. If you only have year, for example, 2001, for a publication date, enter 1/1/01 in the "From" field and 12/31/01 in the "To" field. If you only know a month and year for a publication date, for example, January 2002, enter 1/1/02 in the "From" field, and 1/31/02 in the "To" field.
    • Many documents in the AHIMA Body of Knowledge do not have a publication date, so searching by publication date may omit some relevant content.
    Source
    • Use "source" to limit your search to a particular publication or product. For example:
      • Enter: Journal or select "AHIMA Journal" from the drop-down menu.
    Setting
    • Use "setting" to limit your search to a particular practice setting. For example:
      • Enter: ambulatory or select "Ambulatory Care" from the drop-down menu.
    Specialty Area
    • Use "specialty area" to limit your search to a particular specialty area. For example:
      • Enter: digestive or select "Digestive" from the drop-down menu.

    Field Search Options

    Use the field operators, located to the left of where you enter your search criteria, to define your results more specifically. The default operator for searching for terms in fields is "Contains".
    • "Contains" selects documents where the word or phrase searched is found within the field searched.
      • Enter disclosure to retrieve all instances of the word disclosure (but not stemmed variations such as redisclosure, disclosures)

    There are alternative options for searching terms in fields, which can be chosen from the drop-down menu. Using the title field as an example:

    • "Matches" selects documents where the terms searched are an exact match to the entire field
      • Enter disclosure of health information to retrieve documents where "Disclosure of Health Information" is the exact title
    • "Starts" selects documents where the field searched begins with the terms entered.
      • Enter disclosure to retrieve all titles that begin with the word disclosure (omit initial articles "A", "An", and "The" when performing a field search)
    • "Ends" selects documents where the field searched ends with the terms entered.
      • Enter disclosure to retrieve all titles that end with the word disclosure
    • "Substring" selects documents where the field searched contains a string of text
      • Enter disclosure to retrieve all titles that have the string of letters "disclosure" (results would include titles with the words disclosure, redisclosure, and disclosures)

    Full-text Search

    Full-text search, by itself, is the same as Quick Search. However, Full-text Search can be combined with Field Search on the Advanced Search page. For example, you might type "hipaa" into Full-text and then select a date range. This will limit your search to content concerning hipaa published during the period searched.

    Results Options

    When using the Advanced Search, you can choose how your search results will be sorted - alphabetically by title, by publication date, or by relevancy, in ascending or descending order. You can also set the number of results you want displayed at one time (up to 200). Sort order should be selected prior to performing the search.

       

    Search Results Page

    The search results page contains the following:

    • number of items returned
    • numbered links to help you navigate to more result pages (if there is more than one page of results)
    • the criteria you used in searching (or the criteria used to define the content of HIM Topic folders) [Note: The system automatically displays the phrase "Use published" in all search strings. Just ignore it.]
    • the option to refine your search
    • the option to save your search
    • the content list

    Refine Search

    You can narrow your results by using the Refine Search feature. Select title, author, source, publication date, or full text from the option list and enter criteria in the text box. For example, after performing a Quick Search using "hipaa" and retrieving more results than you expected, you could:
    • select "source" from the Refine Search options, and choose "AHIMA Journal" from the option list to limit your results to content from the Journal
    • select "publication date," choose the After option and enter 1/1/2002 to limit results to content published since the beginning of 2002

    You can continue to refine your results using other fields until you reach a manageable set of results.

    You can also narrow or broaden your results by clicking the back button on your browser and revisiting your Field or Full-text searches to add, change or remove criteria.

    Save Search

    You can save any search you've created. Then, when you return to the HIM Body of Knowledge, you can run the same search again to find new content - without having to rebuild your search from scratch! To save a search, click "Save" and name your search in the box provided. You will be taken to your personal My Searches page, where all of your saved searches are stored and displayed.

    My Searches Page

    To return to your saved searches at any time, click the My Searches button in the top navigation.

    The My Searches page contains a list of saved searches and options for editing your saved searches.

    • To see the results of a saved search, click on the link for that search.
    • If you wish to rename a saved search, click on the link for that search, and save the search again under the new name. Remember to delete the original search.
    • To delete a search, check the delete box and click on the update button. If you check a delete box and decide not to delete, you can either remove the check in the delete box, or hit the reset button to restore the My Searches page to its original state.

    Additional Help

    About the AHIMA Body of Knowledge

    FAQs (includes troubleshooting, login problems, etc.)

    Contact Us with questions about using the library, comments, or suggestions for improving AHIMA Body of Knowledge.

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