All Entries Tagged With: "local chapters"
Individual effort equals organizational success
The role of the clinical documentation specialist has been in a state of flux for the past few years. We
Make a difference by getting involved.
wear many hats including that of nurse, coder, teacher, auditor, statistician, politician, and sometimes therapist. How many times have you had to evaluate the mood of a doctor prior to discussing a documentation issue, or been caught up listening to their problems in the office or with a colleague. The job description is constantly shifting.
Our profession has faced changing DRG’s, dealt with the complex nuances of the query process, and the avoidance of “leading queries.” There are additions to the list of Hospital Acquired Conditions, to contend with, concerns about Recovery Audit Contractor reviews, and the advent of ICD-10 to worry about. And that’s not to mention the transition and implementation of Electronic Medical Records.
During these stressful times, it has become apparent that CDI specialists are resilient, intelligent, resourceful, and indispensable! With these changes however comes stress. An article from MED Indiana, on Life Stressors That May Lead to a Cardiac Event listed several stress factors that may be faced in the clinical documentation workplace. They include:
- Changes in work hours or conditions
- Trouble with your boss
- Change in work responsibilities
- Change in work
- Major business readjustments
These situations may sound familiar to you and since most CDI specialists tend to be “long in the tooth,” or seasoned, as they say, we may be more affected by changes than most. This is one of the reasons that the Association for Clinical Documentation Improvement Specialists (ACDIS) organization is so important, for it gives us a forum to communicate, commiserate and share business practices throughout the state. It is a source for education and team building. A presentation at the 2009 National convention titled Restarting or Revamping Your CDI Program: A Case Study by Catherine O’Leary and Colleen Gary discussed various issues relevant to a CDI programs such as:
- How to hire the right team?
- How to retain your team and provide motivation? And…
- How to measure success?
One major issue addressed in the article seemed to be staff turnover. Not everyone can do this job and not everyone enjoys CDI work. It can be a thankless job. Occasionally we are perceived to be in the adversarial position of “Chart Police.”
The Clinical Documentation Specialist role should be well defined and program goals should be set and if needed, reset, again and again. Ongoing education and growth is fundamentally necessary in all professions and CDI is no exception. Involvement in ACDIS and other educational forums helps us get up to date information regarding our profession. And it helps prevent stagnation and boredom.
The experience of our membership is varied: Some have been working in CDI positions for many years in well established CDI departments and others are new and developing their programs from the very start. We need to reach out and help newcomers and they in turn can then help others that join our group in the future. There is strength in knowledge and there is strength in numbers. The ACDIS organization has the potential to someday have a major role in setting CDI policies and protocols.
In the words of Vince Lombardi: “The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual.” ~
Agenda for week ending Nov. 20
Hi y ‘all (although I’m a New Englander I thought I’d practice my southern drawl. They tell me the plural of y’all is all y’all. )
Here’s a look at a few events coming up this week:
November 18:
Clinical documentation improvement specialists in Connecticut meet at the Hospital of Central Connecticut, Bradley Memorial Campus, at 9 a.m. Meeting frequency and format, as well as a casual sharing of common CDI problems and strategies for success, top the agenda. For information, contact MaryAnn Shanley.
November 19:
ACDIS quarterly conference call 2-3 p.m. EST. This is a members-only call and dial-in instructions were e-mailed out to our membership list. If you did not receive an e-mail notification, and you are an ACDIS member, please e-mail ACDIS member relations specialist Sue Calabro at customerservice@cdiassociation.com. Sue will provide you with the dial-in number and passcode.
November 20:
The Maryland CDS Workgroup meets. Contact Christine Mobley, RN, Director of Clinical Documentation, Prince George’s Hospital Center at 301/618 6507 or by e-mail at Christine.Mobley@dimensionshealth.org.
Surgical Complications: Clinical Documentation Improvement for Compliant Coding and Accurate Quality Measures, 1 p.m. For information, call toll free 800/650-6787 or e-mail customerservice@hcpro.com.
Georgia ACDIS group set to meet
There’s less than three days left before Georgian clinical documentation improvement specialists converge on the city of Atlanta. And even though it’s their first meeting, organizer Bonnie I. Epps, MN, RN, manager of Clinical Documentation Improvement at Emory Healthcare, Inc., in Atlanta certainly hit the ground running.
Take a trip to Atlanta Friday for some CDI fun.
Friday’s meeting, which takes place at Dobb University Center at Emory University Hospital from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., includes sessions on coding changes for 2010, RAC, and the physician’s role in CDI programs. Plus, Epps planned networking, door prizes, lunch, and a tally of results from an informal survey she conducted. That’s a lot to pack into a first meeting!
Since many participants will drive a long way, Epps planned the event for a Friday hoping to encourage a little extra tourist interest. “Hopefully many of you will take advantage of a trip to Atlanta to do some shopping and playing! I look forward to meeting you,” she said in her e-mail invitation.
The last time I was in Atlanta was just after undergrad. My girlfriends and I took a road trip from Boston to Atlanta. We’d originally aimed for New Orleans but thought better of it and settled for sightseeing the capitol of Georgia. One of my favorite memories was our visit to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. If you have time, be sure to visit. An exhibit on display there now was ranked by TIME magazine as among the top 10 museum exhibits in the country!
Like Epps says: Come for the great CDI sessions, stay for a little shopping in the city, take a relaxing stroll through the Garden before heading back to your CDI program full of great ideas, ready to go.
NC Chapter offers meeting in the mountains
North Carolina ACDIS Chapter’s next meeting takes place Friday, November 13, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the Appalachian Regional Healthcare Watauga Medical Center in Boone, NC.
www.blowingrock.com
“I love the fall,” Taylor wrote in an e-mail. “It is my favorite time of year.” So she’s particularly excited to be traveling to the mountains for the NC ACDIS group’s final 2009 meeting. “I’m sure many will decide to spend a long weekend in the mountains of Boone and Blowing Rock,” she says.
The scenery makes these locations among the most popular in our National Park System. Doing a little digging I found out that the Crestwood Inn in Blowing Rock has a wine club that meets at 7 p.m. on November 12th, so guess where I’d be staying! But alas! Although Taylor did her best to entice me, I’ll be diligently performing fall’s not-so favorite task of raking up those autumnal vestages this weekend. Hope I can get my nephews and husband to help with the raking!
If leaf-peeping and sweeping vistas don’t encourage you to join the group, rest assured they have a full clinical documentation improvement agenda that includes changes to 2010 ICD-9 codes, and CCDS certification tips and study groups.
Earlier this year the NC Chapter suggested a friendly contest to see which ACDIS chapter could gather the greatest number of CCDS certified professionals among its memberships by the time the 2010 ACDIS Conference rolls around. With current membership around 55, they challenged themselves to see if they could get 20% of their members to take and pass the exam. Taylor and her cohort Jennifer Love aim to facilitate that goal by organizing study groups to help NC members if they chose to take the test.
In 2010, the NC group will alter its meeting format slightly. Instead of meeting quarterly, the group will plan biannual meetings augmented with teleconferences to discuss best practices. The biannual meeting will most likely be an all-day educationally focused event in the spring and fall. The meeting locations will rotate to allow for transportation needs and to encourage greater participation, Taylor says.
For information, e-mail j.love@novanthealth.org or leah.taylor@iredellmemorial.org.
Northern Illinois CDI Network meets Nov. 5
Our friends in Northern Illinois have been gathering regularly for more than two years now, and
St. Alexius Medical Center is the site of tomorrow's IL meeting.
were a tremendous influence in the organization of the larger Association of Clinical Documentation Improvement Specialists.
I would be remiss if I didn’t give them a “shout out” about their meeting tomorrow. I am sure that the gathering at St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates, IL, will be just as successful as all the earlier Prairie State meetings.
- Donna Kennedy- Compliance issues affecting CDI process
- Jonathan Becker- Monitor/measuring CDMP program
- EHR- Electronic Health Record- Impact on CDI
- RAC- discovery of clinical documentation queries
- Linnea Thennes and Colleen Stukenberg-ACDIS local chapter
- Working process between CDS and Coders working from home
- Misc
Three New York groups gather in December
My alma mater. I used to study on this lawn in the spring.
I went to school in Westchester County, New York, a 20-minute train ride from New York City, at the College of New Rochelle, in New Rochelle, NY. (The city most famously known as home to the Dick Van Dyke Show.)
So I was particularly pleased when Ann-Marie Carducci, RN, MPA, CPHQ, CPUR, CPC, CCS, director of utilization management at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx offered to get a local group going in the area.
But it’s been a bit of a bumpy ride and sadly with workload increases and additional responsibilities, Ann-Marie needed to pass the baton over to Deanna Holowczak, BSN, RN, Clinical Documentation Specialist, at Riverside Healthcare System in Yonkers. Deanna’s currently studying to earn her master degree in nursing administration while she juggles a number of other responsbilities. So thank heavens for the addition of Luanne Jennex, RN, clinical documentation specialist over at Westchester Medical Center, in Valhalla, who met with Deanna and agreed to help launch the first meeting of the Westchester County NY ACDIS group.
Luanne is also in school, finishing up her final courses on her way to earning her BSN, with a master degree potential. “Imagine that after 34 years of nursing?” she jokes. It just goes to show, she says, “you can teach an old dog new tricks.”
So, after some months of diligent grassroots networking efforts the Westchester group is ready to go, looking forward to hosting its first meeting in December. Anyone intersted should contact either Deanna or Luanna at their e-mail addresses above.
In a blog post yesterday, I talked a little bit about the geographical difficulties in getting a local networking group going. Like California, New York defies easy categorization. According to the state Web site, New York contains nearly 50 counties and more than 1,000 cities, towns, and “villages.” From New York City to Albany is 159 miles. The drive takes, according to Google maps, a mere 2.5 hours; roughly the same amount of time it takes to drive from the end of Long Island into the Big Apple. From Buffalo to Yonkers its a 408 mile commute.
When I went to school in New Rochelle I could make it out to Long Island for visit in about an hour, but I was a crazy college kid back then. Most seasoned residents know enough not to undertake such a drive.
So I appreciate the importance of Adelaide M. La Rosa’s efforts in Roslyn, NY. A registered
Long Island ACDIS promises to go the distance for networking needs.
nurse and director of the Clinical Documentation Improvement Program over at St Francis Hospital, she’s been gathering the names and contact information of interested CDI specialists for a few months now and is also ready to host the Long Island NY ACDIS Chapter’s first group meeting.
What I particularly appreciate about both these groups is their flexibility. Not only are they willing to volunteer to help their CDI peers but they’ve also expressed a willingness to include any CDI professional into the meeting that wants to come. So while there is currently no ACDIS groups in Queens or Manhattan for example, those who would like to make the trek off the big island and over to the long one are more than welcome, Adelaide says. The same holds true for our Westchester County hosts.
A great view of the Albany skyline. Join CDI specialists there for the December meeting.
There’s a similar story to tell about our third New York group being fashioned by Lois Rubin RN, BSN, CPUR, CCDS, Lead Clinical Documentation Specialist at St. Peters Hospital, up in Albany. Lois received a great response to initial inquiries about an ACDIS meeting in northern New York. Such a good response, in fact, she worried about the logistics of gathering such a diverse group of people. Nevertheless, she’s courageously forging ahead and plans to host the first meeting during the third week of December.
Such wonderful efforts on behalf of the profession are just another reason we are so energized by local chapter growth in general and in New York in particular.
If you are interested in getting a networking group going in your community please contact me at mvarnavas@cdiassociation.com.
California ACDIS meetings underway
California encompases more than 150,000 square miles.
California (163,696 square miles) contains nearly 60 counties and no less than 12 “regions,” according to the state park Web site, whose motto is “Discover the many states of California.”
It’s wise advice. For the past few months a number of ACDIS members worked diligently behind the scenes to organize local CDI gatherings in what Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger calls “The Great State of California.” Initially, some said the state was just “too big” geographically for networking to work. After all, San Bernadeno County alone contains three million acres. The city of Los Angeles has the fourth largest economy in the United States.
This is a big state.
Fortunately, CDI professionals are not easily deterred. On Wednesday, October 23 the Central California ACDIS Chapter held its first meeting. Next week, on Tuesday, November 10, at 1 p.m., the Northern California ACDIS Chapter will meet. Plans for a Southern California ACDIS Chapter meeting are underway.
Sure, it’s true some states are more geographically challenging than others. But we’re seeing groups in Washington (71,342 square miles), New York (54,556 square miles), and yes, Texas (268,820 square miles) too. In New York City it can take more than an hour to drive from one borough to the next. But a drive from the tip of Long Island to the center of Manhattan takes just under two and a half hours (I’ll post more about developments in the Big Apple tomorrow). In California, too, they throw away the mileage measure in favor of the traffic report and the hour count.
Just as each geographic area presents unique meeting challenges, each area also presents unique clinical documentation improvement challenges. Payment methodologies and intensity of government scrutiny is not the same in Oregon as it is in Kansas. Such difficulties are one of the primary reasons we believe local networking is so important.
Even if a first meeting starts with five CDI specialists sitting in a restaurant talking about the difficulties of their day it helps! The primary intention of ACDIS chapters is to foster networking opportunities for CDI professionals, to establish a community of peers a CDI specialist can turn to, to talk about fears and concerns.
Ultimately, California CDI specialists decided to start with a single overarching California ACDIS group that will provide regular “virtual” meetings and three so-called “local” groups for the aforementioned areas. We expect and quite honestly hope that other, even more local, groups will soon grow to meet the diverse needs of CDI in the state.
We are so proud to be able to announce the formation of the California ACDIS Chapter.
For information contact:
Adriana van der Graaf, MBA, RHIA, CCS, CHP, National Director, Healthcare Reform Services at Integrated Revenue Management, who hosted the first Central CA ACDIS Chapter and will help organize the state-wide meetings. Contact her by phone at 760/448-1063 or by e-mail at avandergraaf@irminconline.com.
SheRee P. Garcia , RHIA, CHP, director, Health Information Management Services at UCSF Medical Center, who volunteered to host the first Northern CA ACDIS meeting. Contact her by phone at 415/353-2885 or by e-mail at sheree.garcia@ucsfmedctr.org.
Gloria S. Noell, RN, CCM, HCQM, CPUM, director of care management at Providence Little Company of Mary joins Wendy De Vreugd, RN, BSN, PHN, FNP, CCDS, senior director case management at Kindred Healthcare Hospital Division, West Region to gather CDI for a Southern CA ACDIS session. Contact Noell by phone at 310/500-6272 or by e-mail at Gloria.Noell@providence.org. Contact De Vreugd by phone at 714/899-5020 or by e-mail at wendy.devreugd@kindredhealthcare.com.
Florida ACDIS sets football themed meeting for November
Go Florida ACDIS!
The quarterly ACDIS Florida Chapter meeting will be held on November 13th, 2009 at Shands Hospital at the University of Florida, home of the 2008 NCAA Football National Champion Florida Gators. The team at Shands has put forth a great regional meeting. So, thanks for all the hard work and dedication. Go Gators!
Here’s the agenda:
- Kick Off: 8:40-9:15 a.m., PreGame Registration/Breakfast
- 1st Down: 9:15-9:30 a.m., A word from our sponsors, greetings from George, Sylvia, and Susie
- 2nd Down: 9:30-10 a.m., Defensive Coordinator “This Isn’t a Complication: Bridging the Communication Gap” Francesca Kayser Enneking, MD, professor and chairman, department of anesthesiology University of Florida College of Medicine
- 3rd Down: 10:00-10:30 a.m., Offensive Coordinator “Public Quality Measures and Mortality Risk Adjustment” Millie Russin, RN, MSN, director of clinical process improvement Shands at the University of Florida
- Halftime: 10:30-10:50 a.m., Bathroom break/calisthenics
- Time Out: 10:50-11 a.m., Pictures
- 4th Down: 11-11:30 a.m., Team Physician “CDI – Keys for Success” Mihaela Dragut, MD, CCS physician advisor, Clinical Documentation Improvement UF & Shands Jacksonville
- Tail Gate Luncheon with 3M: 11:30-12:30 a.m., Computer-Assisted Coding Demonstration Clinical Documentation Improvement Software Demonstration
- Touchdown: Recap/Highlights/Next Game
Missouri CDI head to Kansas City Thursday
Those who live in Missouri may cringe, but many Americans hear Missouri and think of two things
The official emblem of the Kaw nation. Kansas City was named after the tribe that lived there. Guess where these native Missourians live now.
the St. Louis Arch and the Kansas City Royals. Joann Agin, RHIT, may have a bit more reason to cringe than most, as she operates as regional manager of data quality from St. Joseph Medical Center, in Kansas City and has been working to get the first Kansas City CDI group meeting going.
The meeting takes place this Thursday, September 24, 4:30-6 p.m., at St. Joseph Medical Center. The agenda includes:
- Introductions
- Designation as official chapter of ACDIS
- Presentations from National ACDIS Convention May, 2009, by Glennis Fuller and Sarah Hoyt
- New topics for discussion
- Production Standards-who has standards, what are they? Is it based on insurance?
- Software-What type of software is being used at various institutions?
- Share examples of written queries
- Determine frequency of future meetings, location, volunteers
- Book drawing for Physician Queries Handbook provided by ACDIS. Must be present to win.
On that last agenda item, I think Joann should make it a trivia game for who can come up with the most interesting Kansas City fact. You all know how much fun I have finding these obscure tid-bits. Well, here’s one that’s not too obscure maybe Joann will use on Thursday. Did you know that Kansas City was named after the Kansa Indians, or Kaws, who inhabited the area? Guess where the headquarters of the tribe resides now.
Anyone interested in attending this week’s, or future Missouri meetings, should contact Joann at 816/943-2115 or by e-mail at jagin@carondelet.com.
North Carolina Chapter offers credentialing challenge
Good afternoon fellow ACDIS members,
NC ACDIS leaders Jennifer Love, Leah Taylor, and Cathy Dickey (not pictured Abby Steelhammer) challenge others to set certification goals.
The North Carolina ACDIS Chapter is moving forward with a goal — to have 20% of its members become Certified Clinical Documentation Specialists (CCDS) by the next annual conference.
ACDIS estimates that roughly 300 people will have registered to take the exam by the end of 2009. More than 100 CDI professionals took the exam after the ACDIS conference in Las Vegas in May. Since then support for the CCDS credential has grown.
Similarly, the North Carolina ACDIS Chapter has been meeting quarterly over the past year. This summer its members elected an administrative leadership team that includes myself (Jennifer Love) vice president, Leah Taylor president, Cathy Dickey treasurer, and Abby Steelhammer secretary.
We understand the importance of doing quality work and feel honored to be making history. We will be forming study groups soon. We hope that you will join us at your local chapters and engage in this friendly competition to elevate the role of CDI specialist through the value of the CCDS credential.
To learn more about certification, visit www.cdiassociation.com. To learn more about the North Carolina Chapter’s challenge e-mail j.love@novanthealth.org.