Note from the Editorial Director: Conference countdown—two weeks to go!

by Melissa Varnavas

I love our annual ACDIS National conference. I mean I love, love, love it. You’ve heard us (me) say it a thousand times—this community of CDI professionals is like a family, and the conference, is our reunion. While the ACDIS team connects with so many of you throughout the year—volunteers on our boards and committees, sources for our Journal articles, members of the Leadership Council, speakers on our webinars, and so forth—at the conference we get to put faces-to-names, to see and actually shake hands with the people we consider colleagues.

The 2022 event is even more special as we transition from many of the concerns of the COVID-19 pandemic and Imagine (our conference theme this year) what CDI efforts look like now and what they might look like in six months, 12 months, or farther into the future. You all have adapted, so rapidly, to the changing environment of the past two years—pivoting to remote work environments, identifying ways to shore up your programs, communicating the value of your CDI teams’ efforts to administrators seeking any possible way to save money in this fierce economic climate. 

Coming to the conference, we get to learn from each other’s experiences. We get to hear how others lived through and worked through trials similar to those we currently face—and we get to meld their solutions with the advice of other colleagues we meet, some for the very first time, at the event. This year’s event includes five tracks with 50 specialized sessions to choose from. Sessions I’m personally excited about include:

• A two-part session with members of the Wake Forest Baptist healthcare system on where to start your outpatient CDI efforts and then, in part two, diving into how to focus and build on those efforts once your program matures
• Adriana Cecchini’s session on how she and her team from Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital developed the acronym “COUGH” as a pneumonic to help with pneumonia queries
• The team from West Virginia University Medicine’s discussion regarding building a CDI career ladder
• UC Davis CDI leaders sharing their efforts in engaging physicians by leveraging artificial intelligence

Participants can pick and choose which sessions best meet their own educational needs and address concerns at their organization. When CDI teams come to conference together, they often divide and conquer, making the most of the available opportunities and sharing the information learned amongst themselves and with their other colleagues when they return home.

In addition to track sessions, there’s three amazing keynote presentations we’ve been sharing details about in the past few editions of CDI Strategies, and special sessions on diversity and the compliant use of technology in query efforts. There’s also three pre-conference events (you can read more about them further in this week’s edition) to choose from focused on coding for non-coders, outpatient efforts, and CDI for the physician advisor.

To facilitate networking, all attendees are welcome to join the grand opening welcome reception from 4-7 p.m. on May 2, featuring giveaways every hour. It’s an opportunity to meet some of our amazing sponsors and discuss how their staff are helping organizations across the country with some of the most cutting-edge technology and thought leadership.

As always, don’t forget to wear your ACDIS pride (purple and orange) on Tuesday, May 3, the first full day of educational sessions and your state pride (don a baseball hat, team jersey, or other state-theme garb) on Wednesday, May 4.

We’ll have wonderful food for you for breakfast, lunch, and snacks. The Gaylord Palms Resort features so many amazing restaurants you won’t need to leave the venue, but should you venture out there’s discount admission to a variety of theme parks.

As an added bonus, this year, our team will be raffling off a $5,000 prize to one lucky winner to help them and their department advance their CDI education. It’s just one more way ACDIS aims to help our community Imagine what they can accomplish in this ever-changing field of CDI.

There’s only a little over two weeks left before we all pack our bags, board our flights, polish our nails, pick out our perfect orange and purple outfits. I can’t wait to see you all there and hope you can join us!

Editor’s Note: Varnavas is the Editorial Director for ACDIS and works closely with our volunteer event planning committee and ACDIS staff on a wide-range of educational and networking events. Contact her at acdis-inquiries@simplifycompliance.com.