Note from Associate Editorial Director: Quotes of note

by Melissa Varnavas

As a young journalist on deadline, I stared down a blank white computer screen as the clock ticked toward midnight, pondering an exposition regarding my home town’s complicated municipal budget. In the end, I settled on introducing the article with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt. “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort…”

As the article devolved into a collection of quotes from city councilors, my editor at the time simply titled the piece “Beverly Budget Debate: Quotes of Note.”

While not exactly one of my more shining journalistic moments, it is true that certain quotes, like that of Roosevelt’s, reverberate through time, echoing with the truth of the sentiment they express. It’s probably the reason so many ACDIS members include famous quotes in their email signatures.

I love the one from hockey player Wayne Gretzky that ACDIS member Tracy Boldt, RN, BSN, CCDS, CDIP, system manager for CDI at Essentia Health in Duluth, Minnesota, uses in her signature: “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.” The 2016 CDI professional of the year award winner Karen Newhouser played off Gretzky’s quote in her acceptance speech, encouraging those in attendance to use the resources available to them to stay informed about changes in healthcare reimbursement and their effect on CDI efforts.

Another of my favorites related to the CDI profession has long been Mark Twain’s: “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’Tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” Don’t call it congestive heart failure if it’s actually acute-on-chronic diastolic heart failure.

Musing on this, I asked the ACDIS team to put on their thinking caps and come up with a few themselves. Both ACDIS Director Brian Murphy and ACDIS CCDS Coordinator Penny Richards stuck with a writerly theme and the importance of thoughtfully chosen words to convey a message.

Murphy chose John Cheever’s: “A page of good prose remains invincible.”

Richards chose Emile de Girardin’s: “The power of words is immense. A well-chosen word had often sufficed to stop a flying army, to change defeat into victory and to save an empire.”

“Not to mention invited in the auditor or caused claims to be denied,” she added.

ACDIS Editor Linnea Archibald pointed to a quote from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: “It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong,” as evidence of the importance of educating physicians on proper clinical documentation habits. Those physicians who take the time to heed CDI professionals’ advice, she says, ultimately end up saving time by getting the documentation correct to begin with.

ACDIS Associate Director of Membership and Product Development Rebecca Hendren chose a quote from Jane Austin, tweaking the details a tad. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a physician in possession of poor documentation must be in want of a CDI specialist.” We’ll leave it to you to look up the original wording.

ACDIS Educational Director Laurie Prescott couldn’t settle on just one. Her favorites include:

• “Good words are worth much, and cost little," by George Herbert
• “I like good strong words that mean something," by Louisa May Alcott, in Little Women (like acute, chronic, and acute on chronic, Prescott added)
• “It's always a bit of a struggle to get the words right, whether we’re a Hemingway or a few fathoms below his level,” by Rene J. Cappon (which is why you have CDI specialists to assist you, Prescott joked)

We’re sure you have your own favorites, too. Feel free to share them with us or better yet, why not play this game with your CDI team and post your quotes near physician’s documentation stations and around your CDI department as a fun way to provide a little additional insight into the importance of CDI.

After all, as Aristotle said, “The aim of CDI is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”

Editor’s note: Varnavas is the Associate Editorial Director of ACDIS. Contact her at mvarnavas@acdis.org.