All Entries Tagged With: "training"
New e-learning courses open to ACDIS members
In my spare time, I am a creative writing student at a low residency program. Essentially, that
Not an actual sample.
means I’m taking a correspondence course on how to be a better writer. Every month I mail off a packet of papers. My adviser takes out her colored pens, marks them up, and sends them back. It is a little intimidating. I trust you share my “red pen” fears. But I graduate in January (hooray), and hopefully these writing lessons have made the Blog, e-newsletter, and other publications more enjoyable for you.
Sometimes, however, I catch myself wishing for a simpler way, something more akin to our own ACDIS online learning library. As far as I know though there are no writing CEUs for assistant association directors. But if you happen to be in the market for a convenient way to collect CEUs for coding, case management, or CCDS certifications, ACDIS can help.
Just last week we posted two new e-learning courses: one on hospital acquired conditions and another on present on admission. These new programs join sessions on 2009 IPPS MS-DRG update, understanding and applying the 2009 ICD-9-CM codes, inpatient coding: physician queries, and major complications/comorbidities.
Since I won’t be earning CEUs for writing this blog post, I’ll be jumping online in the coming weeks to tackle the ACDIS e-learning offerings myself. I promise to post my progress to all of you here. Feel free to place your bets now on how I’ll do.
If you’ve taken any of our courses please let us know what you think. ACDIS plans to add roughly four new courses every year and we’d love your feedback about what to concentrate on in 2010.
CDI takes center stage at forum in Chicago
Two ACDIS board members discuss CDI in Chicago this week.
Today and tomorrow the World Research Group holds its fourth annual Clinical Documentation Improvement & Coding Expo at the Hilton Suites in Chicago. We are extremely happy that ACDIS members will be well represented. The roster of presenters includes ACDIS Board Members Colleen Stukenberg, MSN, RN, CMSRN, CCDS, Clinical Documentation Management Professional at FHN Memorial Hospital in Freeport, IL, and Garri L. Garrison, RN, CPC, CMC, CPUR, director of Acute Care Services at 3M health information systems in Atlanta, GA.
Stukenberg will present “A CDI Orientation Process: A Checklist to Get Started.” Even when a healthcare organization hires consultants to start the CDI program staffing turnover and program growth requires ongoing training, she says. Her presentation later today explores the scope of a CDI orientation process. Tomorrow, Stukenberg moderates a panel discussion “How to Bridge the Gap Between Physicians, CDI Specialists, and Coders.” The discussion will have equal representation from each profession, naturally. Topics on the agenda include problematic terminology, evidence-based principles, common pitfalls in physician documentation, and clinical indicators in the medical record, among other items.
Before I stop touting Stukenberg’s expertise I want to just take a moment to laud her new book “Successful Collaboration in Healthcare: A Guide for Physicians, Nurses & Clinical Documentation Specialists,” which ties in quite nicely to her prestation tomorrow. The book describes ways in which nurses and physicians can collaborate to enhance patient safety and quality, and how this collaboration can have a positive effect on the financial aspects of an organization, Stukenberg says.
Garrison moderates a panel of professionals tomorrow afternoon to discuss “The Metrics for Evaluating a CDI Program.” Many ACDIS members say that once their CDI programs have been in place for a while, they need to ramp up their benchmarking and data collection. Garrison’s presentation explores how three different facilities tracked their CDI outcomes based on financial, quality, and other ratios.
We are so proud to have such talented board members and know that many ACDIS members also do their part to demonstrate the importance of clinical documentation improvement in their own communities. If you are an ACDIS member and have an upcoming speaking engagement we’d like to hear about it. Let us know by posting a comment here on the ACDIS Blog, on our LinkedIn or Facebook pages, or by shooting us an e-mail.
A Friday toast to lessons learned
Believe it or not there is an association for associations. And yes, Brian Murphy and I are soon to be members. Just as ACDIS provides a venue for CDI specialists to share best practices, the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) and the Center for Association Leadership offers us helpful hints about how to help you. For instance, on the ASAE Blog “Acronym,” Brian Birch outlined a number of the valuable lessons he learned from his members.
I hope you can see where I’m going with all of this, my usual circular logic notwithstanding, since
'The Lesson' by Pablo Picasso. Don't we all have something to learn from one another?
what I’m hoping to convey is the power of circular learning. We all have something to learn from each other: The coder from the clinical experience of the nurse and the nurse from the regulatory understanding of the coder; the physician from the CDI specialist and CDI specialist from the specific knowledge of disease pathways locked away inside the mind of a physician.
So Mr. Murphy and I thought we’d put together a short list of items we learned from the members of ACDIS over the past few years. Things like:
- Once a nurse, always a nurse.
- Urosepsis is a four-letter word.
- Old physicians can learn new documentation tricks.
- Minutiae matters.
- It is easier to work with someone than for something.
- Be careful of the word acute.
And I think Brian Murphy and I learned the importance of the day-to-day work which CDI specialists pour their hearts into. As Mr. Birch wrote: “The best thing I have learned is that they are out there, professionals with strong minds and hearts who are just trying to make a better lives for themselves and their families.”
And so, a toast: To all the lovely lessons learned and all the casual teachers who have taken perhaps the briefest of moments to share their insights with me, their peers, and their coworkers. Please take a moment yourselves to post your own favorite lesson and give a shout out to the mentor who helped you most in the comment section below.
Chicago CDI Boot Camp sold out
That’s the good news and the bad news, I’m afraid.
On the good news side of the scale we place the fact that 32 people—that’s right, 32 people—registered for the four-day CDI Boot Camp being held at the Marriott Courtyard in Chicago/Schaumburg September 28 through October 1. The number of registrants speaks to the intensity of the educational needs of the profession as well as to the dedication of CDI professionals.
Of course, on the bad news side of the scale we place the fact that the Chicago program is, in fact, sold out. So anyone in the area who had hoped to register but was perhaps waiting for last minute approval from their director or other supervisor missed out, I’m afraid. We hope that if you’re in Chicago and did get shut out of the Boot Camp, you’ll be able to take some solace in the fact that the 2010 ACDIS conference will be held in the Windy City June 3rd and 4th, with the pre-conference coding essentials program and post-conference CCDS exam.
Just one more item to tip the scale to the positive. (I like to leave things primarily on a positive note, if possible.) Just because the Chicago program is closed doesn’t mean there won’t be other learning opportunities. The Atlanta, GA, program taking place at Hyatt Place October 12-15, still has multiple open slots. Just a note on that, the early bird hotel room rate ends on September 18, so if you are interested you might want to mention that to the powers that be. And the Boot Camp taking place at the Hilton Phoenix Metro Center in November from the 2nd to the 5th also has multiple slots open.
We are in the planning stages for the 2010 Boot Camp schedules now so if you want a session to come to your neighborhood, give us a shout. We hope everyone who attends the Chicago intensive has a great time and learns a lot.
CDI training-docs teaching docs-available online
Those ACDIS members who’ve been with us since the beginning may remember my good friend Brian Driscoll. He helped facilitate some of those early clinical documentation study groups that led to the launch of this association. Although Mr. Driscoll has made a number of career moves since the start of ACDIS the importance of the profession remains close to his heart. So when he realized his new employer Quantia Communications developed a free training video aimed at teaching physicians about the importance of CDI he asked me to pass the tool along to you.
It features Debasish Dasgupta, MBBS, FACP, Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine and physician advisor, Clinical Documentation Improvement Program, Indiana University Hospital who explores CDI basics telling physicians why they need to care about CDI just as much as coders and nurses and the hospital chief financial officer do. Dasgupta also presents a number of case studies that help illustrate the value of CDI.
While Mr. Driscoll says he misses us all, he confesses to be pretty happy at Quantia, an online community built primarily for physicians. Typically, Driscoll says there’s a sign-in process for this material but he’s worked with his folks to make this available specifically for us.
Let us know if you find it useful.
Draft a holistic approach to CDI program development
Clinical documentation improvement (CDI) programs have evolved over the last few years as
Could it really be so simple?
hospital interest in implementing these programs has grown exponentially. Such interest and evolution seems obvious given the healthcare economic climate and Medicare’s decision in the 2010 IPPS proposed rule to factor in a “behavioral adjustment” for supposed increase in hospital’s case mix absent an increase in patient severity and acuity.
Nevertheless, the field of clinical documentation improvement is relatively new and continues to evolve with the growth of CDI programs.
The fundamentals of CDI programs consists of physician education on the merits of complete, accurate, and effective clinical documentation that can be translated into the most clinically appropriate ICD-9 codes in support of patient acuity, patient severity and risk of morbidity, mortality, and readmission. Different approaches to affecting positive change in physician patterns of medical record documentation may be used by CDI specialists. Typically, educational sessions, handouts, documentation tip sheets, written clinical queries, verbal queries, and monthly newsletters are used as part of CDI programs for this purpose.
However, one important item to consider in any program is the definition of “clinical documentation improvement.” To most, the definition consists of ensuring complete and accurate documentation of clinical diagnoses throughout the record in reflection of patient presentation to the hospital, physician treatment and management of the patient, hospital resource consumption and ultimate MS-DRG assignment.
What is missing in CDI programs is a holistic approach. What do I mean by the “holistic approach?” Holistic documentation improvement entails reviewing physician documentation beginning in the emergency room and continuing with the history and physical (H&P), progress notes, consult notes, and discharge summary to ensure complete, accurate, and effective documentation to complement efforts at capturing all reportable diagnoses associated with an inpatient encounter.
Continuing CDI Education: Where does it come from?
How many of you have read the Official Coding Guidelines for 2008? Anyone? Anyone??
Well, if you haven’t yet, why haven’t you? As CDI professionals I believe that it is our responsibility to make every effort to stay abreast of coding regulations and updates and how they affect our process.
The 3rd Quarter Coding Clinic updates were available earlier this month. It should be standard practice to read the updates and see if there’s something new you need to know.
After the consultants leave…what now?
Hey, you CDS with new programs out there! How’s it going? Are you sailing along on the smooth seas of phenomenal MCC capture rates or are you stalled in the doldrums? Are you asking yourself the following question: “What do I do now that the consultants are gone?
Been there. Done that …twice, in fact! Are you finding that the people at your hospital who decided that a CDI program was a good idea are now saying things like “the CMI doesn’t seem much different” or “where’s the money they promised us”?
Don’t feel bad. You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re just feeling the pangs of aftermath: the training and support is over and now you’re alone and administration doesn’t even know what you do, exactly.
First, who do you report to? Someone who actually knows from a hole in the ground, or someone who wouldn’t know an MCC if it bit them? This isn’t a silly question. If the person making the decisions doesn’t know what you’re REALLY there for, it’s going to be hard to succeed and grow your program. So, invite this person to come to your team meetings and be sure to share your successes and tell him/her how much more you can do with their active support. [more]