(English Only)

New Orleans - AWS joined the 87th AHIMA Convention held September 26 to 30, 2015 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Centre in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, as part of a four-company Philippine delegation. Vice President Tadashi Ishikawa, VP for Finance Lizabeth Ong-Coro, AVP Vincent Remo, and Takaaki Koizumi (AIS) represented AWS.

This marks the first time for AWS to go on a trade mission to the US to explore healthcare IT opportunities and study the market. The AWS delegation also met with potential clients in California outside the five-day convention.

"AWS is expanding its coverage in terms of market and industry reach. US is our target market, with healthcare as the target industry. Offering BPO services is something we are exploring to see if there is a match between our Healthcare IT capabilities and the opportunities that the US market presents," Vincent Remo, Assistant Vice President, said.

The five-day event gathered some 3,000 attendees each day, and 190 exhibiting organisations. This annual activity is organised by the American Health Information Management Association, a professional organization that regulates training and HIM-related certification programs for the HIM workforce such as coders and auditors. As of 2013, AHIMA has over 71,000 members.

"The event has been a good venue to meet industry players who are interested to partner with Philippine-based companies, not only for the English language capability, but also for the available abundant talent in the country in the area of Healthcare. It was also an opportunity to learn about trends in this industry and the impact of ICD-10 adoption to US healthcare providers, among other things," Remo shared.

This trade mission was co-organized by the Health Information Management Association of the Philippines (HIMAP) and the DOST-ICT Office. AWS is a member of HIMAP since June this year. AWS plans to join similar events in 2016.