by Tony Chen

I just got back from taking the CHE Certification exam and I'm glad to report that I passed (barely, I think!). Going into the exam, I was very unsure about my level of preparedness. This is really the first time I've gone into an exam with no idea how well or poorly I would do. Nor did I know what score I needed to pass - ACHE rightfully doesn't tell you what the "passing grade" is. All I knew is that 30% of takers fail.

Out of the 170 questions, I "marked" 65 questions that I was only 50% sure (I had ruled out 2 of the 4 answers). And it turns out that's about how many I missed - probably a bit more than half of those 65 + a few careless mistakes.

My two weakest areas were by far HR and law/regs. My two strongest - business and finance (fringe benefit of working at HFMA for those 3 years!). Anyway, enough about my test experience! For all of you still studying or thinking about taking the test, here's 2 things I would've done differently:

(1) Paid more attention to terms / concepts in my everyday reading. If I had just quickly took the 2 minutes to understand terms, concepts, and acrynoms that I encountered while reading ModernHealthcare, news stories, or Healthcare Executive, over time... my general healthcare knowledge would've broadened significantly.

(2) I should've taken Nick Jacobs' advice - sit down and have lunch with individual functional leaders in procurement, legal, operations, nursing, medical staffing, and HR and just ask them lots of questions. This would've raised questions that I should've been asking and given me a good start at new relationships within my organization.

Anyway, I will enjoy the rest of the year as a CHE and wonder if I will be the shortest-standing CHE in ACHE history - 3 days (from everything I can tell, I'll convert over to FACHE per the new policy on 1/1/2007). More importantly, now that I'm done studying for any more tests, more time for blogging!

Have a happy and safe new year! In the meantime, go check Hospital Impact Blogger (and also newly CHE'ed) Andrew Barna's new website Healthcare Tomorrow.