Note from the Director of Programming: Flourishing in our personal and professional lives

You may be sick of hearing about it, but the theme of the 2023 ACDIS national conference a few weeks ago was Flourish, and I can’t stop thinking about that.

We picked the theme back in 2022 and we loved everything that Flourish conveys, but I don’t think any of us realized at the time how much this theme would come to mean. I really wish we could make Flourish the theme of the entire ACDIS association! It truly is our mission: Our mission is to help you flourish and to foster ways for you to help each other flourish, both professionally and personally.

I am helming next week’s podcast (you can sign up to receive reminders about new episodes here, or always access new episodes on the ACDIS website or via your podcast app of choice) and am planning a conversation with ACDIS Interim Director Laurie Prescott about leadership, a discussion that sprang from conversations we had in person at the conference both between ourselves and with attendees about what it means to flourish.

After such difficult pandemic years, many of us now feel an urge to seize life and make sure we are truly living it. I suspect that the generations who lived through the COVID years will display similarities to those who lived through the 1918 influenza pandemic, and to a lesser extent, some of the other great global calamities, such as the two World Wars. That includes a desire to not waste life merely going through the motions, but to actively seek ways to make our lives meaningful and to choose joy.

For some of us, part of seizing life is growing our careers in ways that feel enriching and give us professional satisfaction. For those in the ACDIS community, that may mean earning that CCDS credential, taking more of a leadership role at your organization, or finding ways to shape the CDI profession through work with ACDIS.

For those of you who want to effect change within the profession and sharpen your leadership skills, the time to volunteer with an ACDIS committee is upon us. The call for volunteers includes the following committees this June:

• Events Committee: This group helps plan the agenda for the ACDIS national conference and ACDIS Symposium: Outpatient CDI, as well as choose the winners of the ACDIS Achievement Awards.
• Furthering Education Committee: This group maintains and awards the ACDIS CDI Scholarship program and helps plan CDI Week activities and festivities.
• ACDIS Regulatory Committee: This large group divides into three subgroups tasked with promoting better coding and clinical accuracy within the commentary period of the CMS IPPS rule-making process, and monitoring and providing guidance on quality regulations.
• Diversity and Inclusion Committee: This group works to make CDI a community that embodies social responsibility through promoting a positive environment of greater diversity and inclusion across all cultures, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, gender identities, ages, and educational backgrounds, to break the silence that accompanies discrimination and inequity, and to ensure that all feel valued, empowered, and welcomed.
• Physician Advisor Committee: This brand-new committee is looking for physician advisors to help craft guidance and best practices for physician advisors in CDI. Among its tasks, the group will author a white paper on the role of the physician advisor in CDI and recommend best practices.

ACDIS committees are a great way to give back, explore something new, and find ways to improve leadership skills. You can apply for the above committees here.

I hope you will take the time to think about what you want personally and professionally in the year ahead and take steps to make it happen. Life is too short to do anything other than flourish.

Editor’s note: Hendren is the director of programming for ACDIS, which is based in Middleton, Massachusetts. Contact her at rhendren@acdis.org.