ACDIS update: Last chance to vote for new members of the ACDIS Advisory Board!

There’s less than one week left in April, which means you have just a few days to cast your virtual ballot and choose which from the ACDIS community will join the ACDIS Advisory Board!

The Advisory Board provides collective leadership, expertise, and written guidance for the ACDIS membership and the broader CDI profession. Through individual work on specific projects (e.g., joint authorship of white papers and position papers), group discussion, and oversight and review of the work of sub-committees and conference presenters, Advisory Board members help to create defined, compliant policy as well as a growth-oriented, forward-thinking vision of the CDI profession. To read the full scope of work accomplished by this committee, click here.

Members of the ACDIS Advisory Board serve a three-year term of service and those elected in this year’s membership vote will serve from the spring of 2024 through the spring of 2027.

We encourage you to carefully read each candidate’s background/qualifications in CDI and then select the candidates that you believe are the best fit for the association. This year, we are electing the following positions: 

• Five clinicians out of a pool of 10 candidates
• One HIM professional out of a pool of two candidates

Below is this year’s list of clinician candidates:

• Dee Banet, MSN, RN, CCDS, CDIP, CCS, division CDI director at AdventHealth
• Kathy Dorich, MSN, RN, CCDS, CPHQ, director of CDI operations at Advocate Aurora Health Care
• Keisha Downes, MBA-HM, BSN, RN, CCDS, CCS, senior director of middle revenue cycle at Tufts Medicine Health System
• Okemena Ewoterai, BSN, MA, CCDS, CDIP, CCS, director of CDI at Montefiore Medical Center
• Penny Jefferson, MSN, RN, CCDS, CCDS-O, CDIP, CRC, CCS, CHDA, CRCR, CPHQ, CDI manager at UC Davis
• Tiara Minor, RN, BSN, CCDS, director of CDI at University of Miami Health System
• Laura Ogaard, RN, MSN, CCDS, CDI IPC manager at Intermountain Health
• Katherine Parsley, MSN, RN, CCDS, CPHQ, CDI manager at Providence Health and Services
• Heather Pautz, MHL, BSN, RN, CCRN-K, CCDS, CDIP, CDI RN and VERA coordinator at Clement J. Zablocki VAMC
• Beth Simms, BSN, RN, CCDS, CDI and acute care coding program manager at Banner Health

Below is this year’s list of HIM candidates:

• Kimberly Hamdani, RHIA, CCS, CCDS, lead CDI specialist at Cooley Dickinson Hospital
• Amy Kratochvil, RHIT, CDIP, CCDS, system director for HIM coding and CDI at UChicago Medicine

Please note that ACDIS only received one candidate for the open physician position. As a result, that individual was reviewed by the ACDIS Advisory Board, which determined he was an excellent candidate and approved his application.

Trey La Charité, MD, FACP, SFHM, CCS, CCDS, medical director for CDI and coding at University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, will be a joining the board for the 2024-2027 term.

Also, here’s your friendly reminder that voting is only open to current ACDIS members. As a result, the candidates and voting options will not appear if you are not logged into the ACDIS website. Voting will close on Wednesday, May 1, so make sure to contribute your voice and click here to vote today!