Note from the ACDIS Editor: It’s time to spotlight pediatric patients in the new CDI Journal!
by Jess Fluegel
Pediatric cases are the minority among those that hit a CDI specialist’s desk, if their organization reviews the population at all. Many CDI programs who do cover these cases will employ a single pediatric CDI specialist for the job, especially because of the scarcity of education on the topic. According to a recent ACDIS poll, 59% of respondents whose CDI programs review pediatric cases said they’ve created their own pediatric CDI education in-house. And yet, evidence of the impact CDI can make on pediatric documentation has proved more over the years!
So, on top of the upcoming online Pediatric CDI Boot Camp and PROPEL Pediatrics offerings, it was only a matter of time before ACDIS dedicated an entire edition of the CDI Journal to topics surrounding the small but mighty patients.
In this edition, readers will find articles about:
- Avoiding big mistakes and helping little patients
- The elusive and ever-changing world of NICU CDI
- Understanding the ins and outs of the APR-DRG system
- A focused review strategy for pediatric quality indicators in resource-constrained CDI programs
- Capturing data with future reach, immediate impact with pediatric SDOH
- Navigating the path to CDI
- Strategies to face pediatric sepsis review challenges
- Adapting together, riding the CDI wave of change
- Reportability and documentation of congenital heart defects in pediatric CDI
- Leveraging the problem list for malnutrition capture
- CDI considerations within MDC 15 for congenital anomalies in the neonatal population
- The time has come for Sepsis-3
This edition also includes a “Meet a Member” feature highlighting one of our member’s experiences in the industry. The ACDIS team hopes you enjoy this latest edition and find something helpful in its pages. As always, the CDI Journal is a benefit of ACDIS membership. To learn more about joining ACDIS, click here. ACDIS members can earn one CCDS/CCDS-O CEU for reading each edition of the Journal and taking the associated quiz. You can learn more on the full edition download page.
Our next edition will be about “getting started in CDI”! Contributing to the CDI Journal is a great opportunity for CDI professionals to share insight with the community, plus you can receive 0.5 CEU per 350 published words (articles tend to be around the 750-1,500-word mark). If you have advice to share on basic CDI essentials, adapting in a new CDI position, or a similar topic, we’d love to receive your submission.
The deadline for the September/October edition is August 1, 2026! You can send your submissions via this form: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CDI-journal.
Whether you review pediatric cases or not, we hope you find a small but mighty piece of insight from this edition that you can bring into your future CDI efforts! Please reach out to me if you have any questions or are interested in writing for our next Journal edition.
Editor’s note: Fluegel is the editor for ACDIS. Contact her at jess.fluegel@hcpro.com.