Why is the week in April when the law put it in October?

The federal designation covered a single week in the fall of 1993 and was never renewed. AHIMA said it moved its own observance to the spring in 2012 to coincide with the day its members lobby on Capitol Hill.

Who runs Health Information Professionals Week?

The American Health Information Management Association. It publishes the dates, the theme and the materials each year, and state associations pass them on to their own members.

Is HIP Week the same as AHIMA's other weeks?

No. AHIMA introduced a separate National Health Information Privacy and Security Week in 2004, and it also runs a National Health Data Week of policy events in Washington.

Health Information Professionals Week

Next celebratedMonday, April 19, 2027

The people who code, classify and protect America's medical records almost never touch a patient. For five days each April, the association that represents them asks everyone else to notice.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

--DAYS

--HRS

--MIN

--SEC

Last updated August 30, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEThird Monday in April (5-day)

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYCareers

SUBCATEGORYHealthcare

ORIGIN

Institutional Initiative

FOUNDING ENTITY

American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA)

FIRST OBSERVED

1990

“AHIMA counts 1990 as year one. In 2012 the association renamed the week and moved it from the fall to the spring.

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

An association's week that federal law borrowed once.

The American Health Information Management Association runs the observance and counts 1990 as its first year, though no record of that first week has been found. In 2012 the association renamed it Health Information Professionals Week and moved it from the fall to the spring.

Read AHIMA's 2012 announcementvia web.archive.org

INTRO

A profession with exactly one week in federal law

Congress has set aside a week for America's health information professionals exactly once, and Health Information Professionals Week is not it. The week it chose began on October 31, 1993, and it went under another name entirely, National Health Information Management Week.

The dates did not line up. President Clinton signed the proclamation on the fourth day of that week. The resolution asking him to do it did not become law until two days after the week had ended.

The week the profession actually keeps is its own. The people it honors code, classify, protect and correct the medical record. It is, in the government's description, one of the few health-related occupations with no direct hands-on patient care.

ORIGINS

Health Information Professionals Week history

INTRODUCTION

The job is older than the week, and its association has had several names. AHIMA traces its own beginnings to 1928, when the American College of Surgeons set up an association of record librarians to raise the standard of clinical records in hospitals. The words "health information management" did not enter the association's name until 1991.

CHAPTER 01

Washington joins in, briefly

The 1993 resolution was not a quiet one. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. of Tennessee introduced it in May, and 218 members signed on as cosponsors. The House passed it without objection.

The follow-up went nowhere, twice. Resolutions for a 1994 week were filed in both chambers, and the Senate passed its version by voice vote. Both then stopped in the same House committee and never moved again.

Then the route closed. In January 1995 the House adopted a rule barring date-specific commemorative bills, defined as any remembrance, celebration or recognition made "through the designation of a specified period of time". Introductions fell to 85 in that Congress, against an average of 586.

CHAPTER 02

A fall week that five groups shared

For years the week sat in the fall, and not AHIMA's alone. In 2000 it ran as Health Information and Technology Week, sponsored by an alliance of five organizations including the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.

Workplaces made their own fun with it. At The Brethren Home Community in New Oxford, Pennsylvania, one of two winners of AHIMA's 1999 contest, the health information director went on the in-house television program. Staff hung posters, some of them over six feet long, and the information systems department set a login reminder reading "HI&T Week: Have you completed the quizzes yet?"

CHAPTER 03

Renamed, and moved to meet a lobbying day

In 2012 AHIMA gave the week its present name and moved it to the spring. Its own announcement said the dates were changed "to coincide with AHIMA's Hill Day", when members go to Capitol Hill for the profession. The association called that year the twenty-third annual observance.

The week has drifted since. It spent most of the 2010s in late March and arrived in April in 2021. The dates AHIMA published for 2022-2026 all begin on the third Monday in April and run Monday to Friday.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why Health Information Professionals Week Matters

DIGITIZATION

9 percent of hospitals in 2008. 99 percent in 2024.

Federal health IT data put the share of non-federal acute care hospitals using an electronic record at 9 percent in 2008 and 99 percent in 2024, with office-based physicians rising from 17 to 91 percent. The office publishing the series notes that its hospital line combines two adoption measures, a 'Basic' one through 2018 and a 'Certified' one from 2020.

PAY

Recognition has not become premium pay

The median medical records specialist earned $51,140 in May 2025, against a median of $50,980 for all American workers in the same survey. The lowest-paid tenth of the occupation earned under $37,000.

AUTOMATION

Automation is the profession's open question

AHIMA titled the week 'Keeping Health Information Human' in 2021 and 'Celebrating the Stewards of Health Information' in 2026. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment of medical records specialists will grow 8 percent between 2025 and 2035, against 3 percent for all occupations, while cautioning that wider adoption of AI-powered coding tools may affect demand for these workers.

BY THE NUMBERS

Health Information Professionals Week by the Numbers

200,700: US medical records specialist jobs, 2025
42,000: US jobs, health information technologists and registrars
$68,020: Median pay, health information technologists and registrars
28%: Share of records specialists in hospitals
35,000: AHIMA members counted in the 1993 law

TIMELINE

Timeline

Record librarians organize

AHIMA traces its beginnings to an association the American College of Surgeons set up to raise the standard of clinical records.

Public Law 103-136 is signed

Congress designated a week for health information management and asked the President to proclaim it.

A second week fails

Joint resolutions in both chambers for a November week died in the House Committee on Post Office and Civil Service.

The House bars commemoratives

A new chamber rule prohibited measures designating a specified period of time, which is the route the 1993 week had taken.

Five organizations share the week

It ran in November as Health Information and Technology Week under the Joint Healthcare Information Technology Alliance.

Renamed and moved to spring

AHIMA adopted the Health Information Professionals name and shifted the dates to meet its Capitol Hill lobbying day.

These dedicated experts are working hard to computerize patient record systems in order to reduce health care costs by decreasing the logjam of unnecessary paperwork confronting hospitals and other health facilities.

William J. ClintonPresident of the United States, Proclamation 6620

Health Information professionals are trusted by patients and providers alike with the most sensitive data that exists about a person, while making sure it's available where and when it's needed.

Wylecia Wiggs HarrisCEO, AHIMA

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe Health Information Professionals Week

Read the one proclamation this profession has

The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents carries Proclamation 6620 in full. It describes a workforce then busy computerizing patient records to cut hospital paperwork, which is a useful benchmark for how far the job has moved.

LEARN

Learn what the letters after a name mean

AHIMA's own primer on the profession sets out that a certified coding associate needs only a high school diploma, alongside credentials for registered health information technicians and administrators. Ask the people in your own records department which ones they hold.

COMPARE

Compare the federal pay data with local postings

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the occupation's pay range and industry breakdown. Setting that beside what your own organization advertises turns a week of recognition into a staffing conversation.

Follow your state health information association

State bodies such as the Wisconsin Health Information Management Association pass the week's materials on to their own members. They are usually where local events and awards are announced.

INTRODUCE

Introduce yourself to the records department

The people this week honors work at a screen rather than on a clinical floor, though the government notes they deal regularly with nurses and other staff. Walking in and asking what slows them down is a more specific form of recognition than a card.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know Health Information Professionals Week?

1 / 8

In what month did the week Congress designated in 1993 begin?

Answer

No. It is run by a professional association rather than by law, so it is a normal working week for hospitals, clinics and offices.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

17sources

14primary records

12independently dated

Primary records

U.S. Government Publishing Office1993

Public Law 103-136, 107 Stat. 1376

The 1993 joint resolution naming a week for health information management.