AHIMA Milestones of the Last 90 Years...it all started in Massachusetts

• In 1912, FIVE women serving as medical record clerks in Boston, MA-area hospitals, including AHIMA Founder Grace Whiting Myers, met at Massachusetts General Hospital to study clinical records; they called themselves the Club of Record Clerks.
• The Association of Record Librarians of North America (ARLNA) is founded in 1928; Myers is elected as president.
• Certification starts up at AHIMA in 1933, with the establishment of the Registered Record Librarian (RRL) credential. In 1939, AHIMA—then known as the Association of Medical Record Librarians—first issued credentials for registration for nine schools.
• In 1938, the Association of Medical Record Librarians renamed itself the American Association of Medical Record Librarians. In 1960 association membership reaches nearly 4,500.
• In 1962, the association offered correspondence courses for medical record staff in the pre-internet era. The Foundation of Record Education (FORE), now known as the AHIMA Foundation, was also incorporated in 1962.
• The association experienced its third name change in 1970, switching from the American Association of Medical Record Librarians to the American Medical Record Association (AMRA).
• In 1975, continuing education requirements were first established for Registered Record Administrators (RRAs) and Accredited Record Technicians (ARTs).
  
  AHIMA Trivia
  
  Grace Whiting Myers, the association’s first president, was born on November 14, 1859 in Worcester, Massachusetts.
  The first Journal cover featured a photo of founder Grace Whiting Myers, and the first article was a reprinting of Myers’s first presidential address at the first annual association convention held a few months earlier in October 1929.