Patricia Thompson MPH, RHIT, CTR, serves as Project Manager for the Registry Partners Oncology Division.
Prior to joining Registry Partners, Patricia worked as the Cancer Program and Cancer Registry Manager for Brooke Army Medical Center in Fort Sam, Houston, TX where she managed a team of eleven cancer registry staff members, volunteers and students. She was responsible for training and mentoring her team as well as assigning workload, monitoring productivity and conducting quality reviews. She worked with researchers develop or refine study ideas and study protocol approval through the Institutional Review Board at the hospital and Department of Defense levels. She also worked extensively with physicians and the administrative staff to provide oversight and management of all aspects of the CoC accredited cancer program. Additionally, Patricia was the US Army Medical Command’s Cancer Program Manager providing oversight, guidance and training for all cancer registry activities at Army medical facilities around the world.
Patricia attended Capella University in Minneapolis, MN where she obtained her Masters of Public Health Degree in 2013. She also attended Excelsior College in Albany, NY where she earned her Bachelor of Science degree in 2009. She has been certified as a CTR and RHIT since 1997. She is presently a member of the Texas Tumor Registrars Association, the National Cancer Registrars Association, American Health Information Management Association, Texas Health Information Management Association and Alamo Area Health Information Management Association.
Patricia presently resides in Texas with her husband, two dogs and two cats and is active in a local feral cat coalition. She has a son, stepdaughter, stepson and five grandchildren. In her spare time, she enjoys helping her husband work on their ranch in Southwest Texas, reading Janet Evanovich novels and watching Dancing with the Stars and Queen of the South.
Q & A with Patricia:
Q: How did you become interested in the administrative side of health information management?
A: One of my first positions in this profession was at small hospital in Louisiana and it required me to know medical terminology and coding in order to allocate funding for procedures and care our hospital did not offer. Yes, I could match up codes and blindly obligate money, but I like to thoroughly understand what I’m doing to be sure I am doing it correctly so I sought out educational opportunities and wound up attending the AHIMA Accredited Record Technician correspondence program, and wound up earning earned my ART (now RHIT) credential. Through my education, I learned about the numerous opportunities within health information management and when the opportunity for a cancer registry position was offered to me at a larger institution position, I accepted. Eventually, I was asked to represent all US Navy hospitals for the Navy Surgeon General at the Department of Defense and thus, my management career started.
Q: What did you do prior to entering the healthcare field?
A: Prior to entering the healthcare field, I served as a Russian linguist in the US Army, a Quality Assurance Specialist and a publishing editor and several other interesting career fields. It wasn’t until I found Health Information Management, then Cancer Registry Management that I found my true passion.
Q: In your opinion, what makes your job interesting?
A: The Cancer Registry itself, and especially, registry management is so interesting is because it is constantly evolving. It changes almost as fast as there are medical advancements for diagnosing and treating patients…or so it seems! This is a perfect job for someone who enjoys continuously learning, likes variety and enjoys helping others. While we are not on the forefront of patient care, we are definitely involved in the process, and the data we management helps drive some of the changes I mentioned earlier. It is a very rewarding and enriching career choice.