Kristy Courville, MHA, RHIA, is an instructor within the Department of Health Sciences at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She has 20-plus years of experience in the HIM field. Prior to becoming a full-time educator, Ms. Courville was the director of HIM within an acute care hospital, a position she held for eleven years. She has been actively involved as a volunteer for both the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and the Louisiana Health Information Management Association (LHIMA). She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Information Management from the University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette, and a Master of Science degree in Health Services Administration from the University of St. Francis in Joliet, IL.