SAINT FRANCIS NAMES WILLIAM T. ORAVECZ AS

William T. Oravecz, of Southbury, has been named the newly appointed Director, ICD-10 Implementation, at Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center.

            Oravecz will be responsible for integrating the individual components of the enterprise-wide ICD-10 transition implementation program. ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition) will replace the current ICD-9 code sets used to report medical diagnoses and inpatient procedures. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have mandated that hospitals must transition to ICD-10 by October 1, 2014.

            According to CMS, ICD-9 produces limited data about patients’ medical conditions and hospital inpatient procedures. ICD-9 is 30-years-old, has outdated terms, and is inconsistent with current medical practice. ICD-10 codes allow for greater specificity and exactness in describing a patient’s diagnoses and in classifying inpatient procedures. ICD-10 has 150,000 codes compared with 14,000 codes in ICD-9.  ICD-10 will pose significant challenges to providers and payors, but will ultimately provide higher-quality information for measuring healthcare service quality, safety, and efficacy.

            Oravecz has more than 30 years experience as a top-producing healthcare technology and IT solutions executive with profit-generating operations, human resources, financial and marketing management expertise.

            Oravecz holds a Masters of Business Administration in Finance and e-Commerce from the University of Connecticut, School of Business. He also holds a Master of Science in Radiology/Medical Physics from the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine and Division of Biological Sciences. He is a member of the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and the American Medical Information Association (AMIA).