CHESTER — A Chester woman is being honored as the 2022 Distinguished Member of the Illinois Health Information Management Association.
Donna Young, RHIA, CDIP, CCS, began her career in 1979 as a coder in the medical records department of Memorial Hospital in Chester.
She received her first credential, Certified Coding Specialist (CCS) in 1992.
After earning her CCS certification, she decided to obtain her associate degree and became Registered Health Information Technician through a home-study program.
In 1999, she became a concurrent coder at St. Joseph Memorial Hospital in Carbondale where she moved into a management in 2002.
She obtained her Bachelor of Science in Health Informaiton Administration from Stephens College in Columbia, Mo. in 2009 and then a Clinicial Documentation Improvement Practitioner (CDIP) credential in 2016.
She was awarded the Distinguished Member Award from her colleagues in the Southern Illinois Health Information Management Association.
Currently she is the manager of two off site Southern Illinois Healthcare Information Departments: Memorial Hospital of Carbondale and St. Joseph Memorial Hospital in Murphysboro.
The citation on her award reads as follows:
