Note from the Associate Editorial Director: Staying Engaged = More engaged than we ever hoped

by Melissa Varnavas

One of my principal roles here at ACDIS is working with our conference committee to solicit, review, and select presentations for the national CDI podium. The committee reviews nearly 200 proposals annually, and that’s just for our main conference. Then there’s the networking activities, the vendor events, the pre- and post-conference get togethers.

Honestly, it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of work for everyone involved. And honestly, I always get super nervous in the week and days heading into our events.

Though our live annual conference was cancelled amid COVID-19 concerns, I had reason to be nervous this week, too.

It goes without saying that we’re living in unprecedented times, and ACDIS has never attempted a virtual educational event. We wanted to bring our community together in a way where people could say “hello” to one another and talk to one another as well as learn from our excellent slate of presenters. We chose to use our traditional conference app as well as some “live” opening sessions and a virtual gala where we got to “see” some folks. We weren’t sure how it would work.

Would attendees “play” our scavenger hunt game like they would if we were onsite? Would they post their take-home tips from each session like they would if multiple sessions were taking place concurrently? Would networking breaks work at all? Would anyone be actually able to even follow the suggested agenda?

Wednesday morning, I told my parents that I wasn’t sure how we were going to do this. They smiled; told me it would be fine. They’re great parents. Of course, that’s what they said.

And by 10 a.m. on the first day of Staying Engaged: ACDIS Presents Virtual Education & Community, I knew they were right.

It wasn’t all the behind the scenes work that made our first ever virtual event a success, it’s the more than 400 attendees who not only shared their dog, cat, baby, and virtual office photos but also their CDI stories, tips, advice, and straight up joy about the role they play in this profession. Not all those stories were easy ones to tell. Our community has been hit hard by COVID-19. There have been deaths in our family. There have been layoffs. There have been job reductions. Still, attendees shared. Still, attendees took the time to invest in their careers, in CDI, in ACDIS.

We loved seeing all your coffee mugs and mid-afternoon break suggestions. We were thrilled with all the various cocktail recipes shared. We jotted down notes of our own regarding the best meals of attendees’ hometowns.

Most of all, we love just seeing and being with you all. Even if it is virtually.

Today is Thursday, the second day of our event. We have so much more in store. This morning we celebrate our ACDIS Achievement Award winners and listen to sessions on creating diagnosis-specific clinical guidelines, trauma CDI, and the inpatient prospective payment system proposed rule, as well as a lunch-and-learn lightning round of education with our sponsors.

Tomorrow, the ACDIS Advisory Board opens the day with a question and answer session. Then, we’ll explore moving to remote CDI and hear some really concrete tips for doing so effectively. We’ll hear about CDI efforts in the ED and talk to an amazing group of CDI professionals about how they’ve incorporated their CDI auditor and educator roles to make a full-circle feedback loop for documentation improvement.

Best of all, we get to hang out together, to be with our amazing CDI family for at least this time.

If you haven’t registered, you can still do so. All the sessions will be available through the fall. And the networking in the app will remain open for a few weeks.

Take care, stay safe, stay engaged, be well.

Editor’s note: Varnavas is the associate editorial director of ACDIS. Contact her at mvarnavas@acdis.org.