ACDIS Boards & Committees

Click here to download the committee scope of work. For questions about the Advisory Board, contact ACDIS Director Brian Murphy (bmurphy@acdis.org).

To view ACDIS Advisory Board frequently asked questions, please click here.

Click here to download the committee scope of work. For questions about the committee, contact ACDIS Associate Editorial Director and Committee Coordinator Melissa Varnavas (mvarnavas@acdis.org).

Board Members: Leola Burke from North Carolina, Deb Dallos from Florida, Lillian Dickey from Washington, James Doster from Georgia, Karen Elmore from Missouri, Lori Ganote from Kentucky, Joan Korn from Wisconsin, Lori LaFaver from Pennsylvania, Angelica Naylor from Missouri, Kristie Perry from Tennessee, Molly Seibert from Oregon, Rani Stoddard from California, Rachel Strom from North Dakota, Aimee Van Balen from Massachusetts, and Melissa Varnavas (committee coordinator).

To read the 2018 committee members' bios click here. To read the 2018 committee members' bios, please click here.

Click here to download the committee's scope of work. For questions about the committee, contact ACDIS Associate Editorial Director and Committee Coordinator Melissa Varnavas (mvarnavas@acdis.org).

2020 Committee Members: Ashley Chamberland, Deanne Wilk, Denice Hebert, Ellen Jantzer, Jennifer Boles, Lisa Adkins, Monique Vanderhoof, Sandra Love, Tracy Boldt, Val Bica, Shelia Bullock (nurse planner), and Melissa Varnavas (committee coordinator).

Click here to download the committee scope of work. For questions about this committee, contact ACDIS Director Brian Murphy (bmurphy@acdis.org).

Board Members: Marie Bourque-Namer, Karen Bridgeman, Sharme Brodie, Mary Carol Brouwer, Cheryl Ericson, Patricia Henry, Fran Jurcak, Roshan Shetty, Susanne Warford, Dorene Watson, Gail Weldon, and Irina Zusman.

Click here to download the committee's scope of work. For questions about the committee, contact ACDIS Associate Editorial Director and Committee Coordinator Melissa Varnavas (mvarnavas@acdis.org).

  Karen Elmore, BSN, RN, CCDS
  Documentation Quality Coordinator
  BJC HealthCare
  St. Louis, Missouri
  karen.elmore@bjc.org 
  missouristateacdis@gmail.com 

Elmore began the CDI program at Boone Hospital in Columbia, Missouri, (part of BJC HealthCare) in 2008. Her previous experience includes 18 years as a neurological intensive care unit nurse and the clinical education lead. Elmore earned her CCDS in 2014, and in 2016 became a documentation quality coordinator for BJC HealthCare where she supports 14 CDI specialists and four CDI leaders within four hospitals in the Columbia/St. Louis area. Her current areas of focus include account management, second level reviews, quality measures (patient safety indicators/hospital-acquired conditions), coding and CDI mismatches, physician/provider education, mortality reviews, insurance denial reviews, and orientation of new CDI staff and providers.

Elmore started the Heart of Missouri ACDIS local chapter in 2009 and in 2015 brought together other Missouri chapters to hold a state-wide, full-day event. They’ve since held three state conferences gathering more than 100 participants. She also currently serves on the ACDIS Chapter Advisory Board.
 

  Cindy Hestir, RN, MSN, CCDS
  CDI specialist
  University of Missouri Health Care
  Columbia, Missouri
  hestirc@health.missouri.edu

Hestir has been a CDI specialist at her organization for more than four years. She’s been a nurse in the University of Missouri healthcare system for more than 25 years working in a variety of positions including general medicine, cardiology, cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation, staff health, care coordination and utilization review. She is an active member of the Heart of Missouri ACDIS chapter serving as the treasurer, and a member of the state conference planning committee. She enjoys traveling, hiking, and spending time visiting her children.
 

  Deb Jones, RN, MSN
  Director of Clinical Documentation
  Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Brigham Faulkner Hospital
  Boston, Massachusetts
  djones32@bwh.harvard.edu

Jones serves as the CDI director at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a large academic medical center affiliated with Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. Reporting to the quality and safety department, the CDI team collaborates with quality professionals, clinical teams, HIM, and coding to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the medical record.  Since taking on the director role in October of 2017, Jones expanded the program to include commercial payor reviews and risk adjustment queries, and consequently doubled the number of CDI staff at the facility. She attributes her success to “recruiting and retaining the best and brightest CDI professionals in the industry.”

Jones is an inaugural member of the ACDIS Leadership Council and a frequent poster presenter at the national conference.
 

  Rebecca Barwick Millar, RN
  CDI specialist
  Asante
  Grants Pass, Oregon
  barwick.becca@gmail.com

Millar is a CDI specialist at Asante graduated with honors from University of Memphis Loewenberg and is currently working on her master’s degree in in business administration Her nursing experience includes ICU, ER, and oncology. She serves on committee’s regarding patient safety, medication safety, improving staff morale, others at her facility.
 

  Caryn Nowak, RHIA, CDIP
  CDI specialist
  Rady Children’s Hospital of San Diego
  San Diego, California
  cnowak@rchsd.org

Nowak has more than five years of experience within healthcare and has been a CDI specialist at Rady Children’s Hospital of San Diego for the last two years. Her previous experience includes inpatient and outpatient coding record reviews and education, CDI education and ICD-10 transition projects. Nowak served on the CDI Week Committee last year and has served on the other boards and committees in the past.
 

Returning committee members

  Barbara Brant, MPA, BSN-RN, CCDS, CDIP, CCS
  CDI specialist
  Cooper Health
  Friendsville, Tennessee
  Barbarajane.brant@gmail.com

Brant is a CDI professional with 25 years of clinical nursing experience and more than 13 years’ experience in documentation improvement efforts as a CDI, coder, and auditor. She has worked within health systems as well as outside consulting for documentation and coding improvements. Brant also has a proven ability to lead in the development, training, and implementation of CDI program incentives. With experience working as a Recovery Auditor Contractor (RAC), her passion is the importance of denial prevention and clinical validation for CDI professionals. She currently resides in Tennessee with her husband.
 

  Debra Dallos, CDIP, RN
  CDI supervisor
  Sarasota Memorial Hospital
  Sarasota, Florida
  Deb-Dallos@smh.com

Dallos has served the past eight years in a CDI role coming from more than 28 years of experience as a nurse with 22 years in the critical care arena, including the intensive care unit, open heart recovery, post-anesthesia care unit, and ED.  She is the current supervisor of a robust CDI program at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, and she is active in the wound care steering committee, provides CDI education to all new incoming medical staff members. Dallos also works hand-in-hand with the CDI physician advisors. She served as chair on unit-based, as well as hospital-wide, practice councils and earned the EXCEL Award at her organization after being nominated by her peers.

Dallos was the president of the Florida ACDIS local chapter for two years, where she coordinated quarterly meetings for one of the largest ACDIS state chapters. Deb completed her role as president of FLACDIS in 2018 and joined the CAB, where she has appreciated learning all the different aspects of chapter management across the country. 
 

  Tamara A. Hicks, RN, BSN, MHA, CCS, CCDS, CCDS-O, ACM
  Manager, Care Coordination
  Wake Forest Baptist Health
  Winston-Salem, NC
  thicks@wakehealth.edu

Hicks is a registered nurse with more than 30 years of experience, 15 years in critical care and more than 16 years in CDI and management.  She currently manages the CDI team at Wake Forest Baptist Health, an 885-bed academic medical center and previously served as manager over the case management, social work, and utilization departments. 

Hicks is a founding ACDIS advisory board member, a 2019 Conference Committee advisory board liaison, and currently serves on the CCDS and CCDS-O boards advisory board. She has spoken at several local and national ACDIS meetings and was named 2019 CDI Professional of the Year by ACDIS. A member of AHIMA and ACMA, Hicks earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing her master’s degree in health administration with a concentration in leadership and organizational change.
 

  Madhu Subherwal, MHA, MBBS, CCDS, CDIP
  CDI manager
  Torrance Memorial Medical Center
  Torrance, California 
  Madhulika.Subherwal@tmmc.com

Subherwal is a physician, completing her medical education from Dayanand Medical College in India. She has been now held her current position for the past three years.  She began her journey in CDI in 2010, while completing her master’s degree in health administration from the University of La Verne, capping her education with her thesis “The Importance of Clinical Documentation Improvement Programs and Physician Documentation Practices in the Hospital Setting.”

She is a member of the California ACDIS Chapter leadership team and served on the 2019 Conference Committee. Her personal interests include walking on the beach with her dog, listening to music and attending concerts, and watching movies.
 

2020 Nurse Planner

  Shelia A. Bullock, DHA, BSN, MBA, CCDS, CCS, CAHIMS
  Assistant professor/ANCC nurse planner
  University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC)/ACDIS
  Jackson, Mississippi
  sabullock@umc.edu

Bullock helped start the CDI program at UMMC in 2007. She previously served as an ACDIS Advisory Board member from 2009 to 2011, has been a speaker at the national conference in 2012 and 2015, served as a resource for ACDIS publications such as the CDI Journal, and currently serves as ACDIS’ nurse planner helping the association ensure its programs meet the educational standards of the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

To read the 2019 conference committee members' bios, please click here.

To read the 2018 committee members' bios, please click here.

Click here to download the committee scope of work. For information about this committee, contact ACDIS Editor and Committee Coordinator Linnea Archibald (larchibald@acdis.org).
 

  Johanne Brautigam, BSN, RN, CCDS
  CDI manager
  Roper St. Francis Healthcare
  Charleston, South Carolina
  johanne.brautigam@ropersaintfrancis.com

Brautigam manages a team of 11 CDI specialists which covers four hospitals in the low country. She earned her associate degree in nursing in 1986 from Rancho Santiago College in Southern California, her bachelor’s degree in 1999 from the University of Utah and was a CCRN for 20 years. She has more than 25 years of experience as a critical care nurse, working throughout the Unites States and the United Kingdom. After settling in Charleston, she took the leap into CDI in 2010, earned her CCDS in 2011, and took on the role of manager in 2012. When she doesn’t have her nose in the records, she enjoys camping and boating with her family. Currently, she is focused on denials prevention in sepsis, malnutrition, and orthopedic conservative measures.
 

  Janie Brown, RN, CCDS
  Director of clinical documentation accuracy
  Community Health Network
  Indianapolis, Indiana
  jbrown5@ecommunity.com

Brown has been a registered nurse for 35 years and spent 25 years of that time as a bedside nurse in cardiac care and post-anesthesia care. The transition to CDI was an opportunity to user her clinical knowledge and experience in a whole new way. Brown started the CDI program at Community Heart and Vascular Hospital and was promoted to director of clinical documentation with oversight for five hospitals within Community Health Network three and a half years ago. She is a graduate of The University of Indianapolis where she met her husband. Brown has two sons who are currently in college, and her hobbies include reading, swimming, and playing with her dogs. 
 

  Rachelle Buol, RHIA
  Director of coding and CDI
  UW Hospital
  Madison, Wisconsin
  rbuol@uwhealth.org

Professional bio coming soon…
 

  Karin Killenberger, BSN, RN, CCDS
  CDI specialist
  Baylor Scott & White Medical Center
  Howell, Michigan
  karinkillenberger@gmail.com

Killenberger is a seasoned nurse with more than 40 years of experience in surgical critical, post anesthesia, and coronary care units, as well as vascular surgery. She became a nurse when the nursing textbook was a slim volume, as there were no machines, other than a bedside suction. She received great on-the-job training and made her way into the world of CDI (because she knew what a DRG was, she got the CDI job that was open in her small local hospital) after working in home care doing quality reviews.

From there, Killenberger says she’s experienced a whirlwind of education, be it formal, or self-paced, attending ACDIS conferences, reading the journals, taking quizzes, and working until she could take the CCDS exam. She traveled for four years as a CDI specialist, gaining insight into CDI trends around the country. She recently transitioned to remote CDI work for Harmony Healthcare, and Baylor Scott & White Medical Center.

Killenberger enjoys challenges of all kinds including zip lining, hiking in the desert, and puzzles. She enjoys photography, quilting, travel, and cooking. She has two sons, both surveyors. Her dream vacation is taking a Rhine River cruise someday. 
 

  Alisia Lee, MSN, RN, CCDS
  CDI specialist
  Singing River Health System
  Pascagoula, Mississippi
  lee_alisia@yahoo.com

Lee is a CDI specialist with more than 30 years of nursing experience, including roughly three years of CDI-specific experience. In her current role, she reviews inpatient records daily, collaborates with providers, case managers, coding professionals, and other healthcare team members to facilitate comprehensive medical record documentation.
 

  Sarah Matacale, RN, BSN, CCS
  CDI specialist
  Vidant Health
  Middlesex, North Carolina
  sarah.matacale@gmail.com

Matacale is a CDI specialist with more than 20 years of experience in nursing specializing in cardiac critical care and hospice. She has nursing experience in a wide variety of inpatient and outpatient areas.

After suffering a large extent of hearing loss, Matacale regrouped, and refocused her career goals on CDI efforts and has been diving headfirst into charts ever since. Longing for a way to reach people, writing became an outlet and she has written about CDI on nursing websites and for magazines.
 

  Keri Miller, RN, CCDS
  CDI specialist
  McLaren Greater Lansing
  St. Johns, Michigan
  kerimiller2010@gmail.com

After eight years as a medical oncology and intermediate level RN, Miller began a career in CDI, obtaining the CCDS certification two years later. After three years in the CDI field, she has come to enjoy the ever-changing landscape and challenges that come with the profession. Her passion is CDI education and collaboration amongst peers and physicians.

When she’s not working, Miller enjoys spending time with family, hiking, and outdoor motor sports.
 

  Shirlivia Parker, MHA, RHIA, CDIP
  Senior manager of physician partnership and advocacy in CDI
  Providence St. Joseph
  Irvine, California
  Shirlivia.parker@stjoe.org

Parker is the senior manager of physician partnership and advocacy in CDI at Providence St. Joseph Health System (PSJHS), Shared Services. She has a master’s degree in health administration from the University of Phoenix in Phoenix, Arizona, and a Bachelor of Science in health information management (HIM) from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Parker has 19 years of revenue cycle experience, which includes various roles, including HIM director, CDI physician educator, clinical coder/auditor, CDI specialist, and denial’s management expert. She has worked with PSJHS for the past four years.
 

  Cherri Sanders, RHIT
  HIM director and privacy officer
  Lourdes Medical Center
  Pasco, Washington
  cherri.sanders@lourdesonline.org

Sanders received her degree from DeVry University in 2008 and has been working at her organization for more than 10 years. Currently, she manages the HIM, coding, and transcription departments for the behavior health services, a medical center, and the physician clinics. Previously, she was given the opportunity to manage three specialty clinics, but she transitioned out of that role last year. Recently, she was asked to oversee the HIM and CDI teams for Trios Health as well as Lourdes, which became a sister-hospital with Lourdes’ recent transition to LifePoint. Lourdes started their outpatient CDI program in the fall of 2016 and has since shifted focus to the inpatient side in late 2018. Thus far, the program has been well received by the hospitalists and the team has excellent support from senior leadership as well as from the physicians.
 

  Terry Simmons, MSN, RN, CCRN-K, CCDS
  CDI specialist
  Hartford Healthcare, Hospital of Central Connecticut
  New Britain, Connecticut
  terry.simmons@hhchealth.org

Simmons has 35 years of bedside clinical practice experience in medical-surgical and extended care, including 25 years as a critical care nurse. Now, she’s approaching seven years in CDI. in 2004, Simmons was honored with the American Association of Critical Care Nurses Clinical Excellence Award and as a Nightingale nurse in 2011. She enjoys hiking and swimming in the ocean with family and friends. Her primary research has been in nursing documentation, so becoming CDI was a natural choice.
 

  Cindy Whichard, RN, CCDS
  Senior director of revenue cycle
  Paramount Health Solutions (PHS)
  New Orleans, Louisiana  
  cynthia.whichard@aol.com

Whichard has more than eight years of experience successfully leading clinical operations in middle revenue cycle, specifically CDI. In her current role, Whichard will head client delivery solutions to ensure best practice management is achieved. Prior to joining PHS, Whichard served as a regional CDI director for Conifer Health Solutions where she was responsible for CDI operations for three Divisions, totaling 11 hospitals. She managed a CDI budget of $16.5 million. Additionally, she performed CDI and physician education.

Whichard has experience with CDI program implementation as well as CDI practice for large academic centers like Ochsner Health Systems in New Orleans. She is a graduate of Howard College in Texas and has more than 16 years of clinical nursing practice.

She is a member of the California, Washington, and Tennessee state local ACDIS chapters. Currently, she is leading the launch of the first Arkansas local ACDIS chapter.
 

CDI Week Advisor

  Chinedum Mogbo, MBBS, MsHIM, RHIA, CDIP, CCDS, CCS
  Manager, CDI
  Tenet Healthcare
  Dallas, Texas
  mogboc@gmail.com

Mogbo has a passion for quality patient care and all things CDI, including its overall impact on patient care/safety, and physician and hospital profiles. She has successfully managed various teams, including clinical documentation specialists and coding auditors. She worked as a CDI training director for a California-based health system and currently works as a CDI manager for Tenet Healthcare. She actively participates in the CDIP and RHIA exam item writing with AHIMA. She has been involved in the successful development of in-house curriculum for training clinical documentation specialists and serves as co-chair of the AHIMA CDI practice council working on many projects that provide guidance to the industry—the most recent being updating the Guidelines for Achieving a Compliant Query Practice, a joint publication between ACDIS and AHIMA..

She co-authored an AHIMA practice brief on “Physician Engagement in CDI,” featured in the July 2017 Journal of AHIMA and also co-authored the AHIMA practice brief on “Physician Office Query” in July 2018. Mogbo was a speaker at the 89th AHIMA Convention, a moderator at the 2018 AHIMA CDI Summit and presented on AHIMA webinars in 2018 and 2019.

Mogbo is currently serving on the ACDIS Advisory Board through April 2022.

Click here to download the committee scope of work. For questions about the committee, contact ACDIS Editor and Committee Coordinator Linnea Archibald (larchibald@acdis.org).
 

  Tamara Adolph, RN, CPCP, CCDS, CDIP
  CDI Corporate Educator
  AdventHealth
  Altamonte Springs, Florida
  Tamara.Adolph@AdventHealth.com

Adolph is a registered nurse with 13 years of nursing experience, the last four of which were in CDI. Her nursing background includes medical-surgical and progressive care unit. Since beginning her CDI career in 2015, she advanced to the CDI manager position and now serves as a corporate CDI educator. In this role, she is responsible for creating and delivering educational presentations monthly to more than 40 campuses and more than 130 CDI specialists, creating and delivering monthly newsletters, developing tip cards and the link, and collaborating with other departments on software updates, quality reviews, and the hiring process.
 

  Jillian Bisbe, RN, MSN, CCDS, CDIP, CCS
  Director of clinical Validation Appeals
  Intersect Healthcare + AppealMatters
  Cape Coral, Florida
  jbisbe@intersecthealthcare.com

Bisbe is a registered nurse with more than 18 years in the profession, the last five of those in CDI. Her clinical background includes labor and delivery, cardiovascular intensive care, and trauma. As well as the Forms and Tools Committee, Bisbe is a member of the ACDIS Leadership Council and a two-time poster presenter at the national ACDIS conference. In addition to her CCDS and CDIP certification, she is a certified coder, member of American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), and member of National Association of Healthcare Revenue Integrity (NAHRI).
 

  Alison Bowlick, BSN, RN, CCDS, CRC
  AVP, CDI and Revenue Cycle
  Bon Secours Mercy Health
  Toledo, Ohio
  Alison_bowlick@mercy.com

Bowlick currently oversees 18 acute care facilities, continually strategizing for operational improvement, researching and applying best practice measures for DRG optimization, and quality assurance. She has been instrumental in maintaining streamlined processes and expectations across multiple states and facilities with a strong focus on leadership, teamwork, and interdisciplinary collaborative development. Bowlick has more than 18 years of nursing experience at a level 1 trauma center with six-plus years dedicated to CDI, physician engagement, and education.
 

  Vicki Galyean, RN, BSN, CCDS
  CDI Team Leader
  Wake Forest Baptist Health
  Winston-Salem, North Carolina
  vgalyean@wakehealth.edu  

Galyean is a registered nurse with 32 years of experience—19 years in critical care, four years as a nursing supervisor, and nearly nine years as a CDI specialist. In her current role, Galyean is responsible for the daily review of potential hospital acquired conditions (HAC) and patient safety indicators (PSI). She also assists with orientation of new CDI specialists and completes mortality reviews to verify appropriate severity of illness and risk of mortality. She presented a poster at the 2016 ACDIS conference in Atlanta and was chosen to speak at 2018 ACDIS conference in San Antonio on incorporating HAC and PSI reviews into the daily workflow of the CDI specialist. She has also presented at North Carolina ACDIS local chapter meetings.
 

  Alicia Gordon, RN, BSN, CCDS, CDIP, CCS
  Manager of CDI
  MazarsUSA
  Nashville area, Tennessee
  Alicia.gordoncdiccs@gmail.com

Gordon has more than 20 years of extensive nursing experience including ICU and quality and nine years in CDI program development and implementation. She earned her CCDS certification in 2009, her CDIP in 2014 and her CCS in 2015. She is also an AHIMA ICD-10-CM/PCS trainer.

Gordon is known for her integrity, ability to build collaborative relationships, fostering physician engagement, and ability to develop/mentor new CDI specialists to success. She is a manager of CDI at MazarsUSA. Prior to this, Alicia worked as a CDI manager of operations for HCA Intensive Care Consortium and a corporate CDI director for two healthcare systems. She successfully managed and reinvigorated established best-practice CDI programs in academic medical centers and community hospitals. Gordon also implemented new CDI programs and developed CDI/coding professional and physician educational programs.
 

  Lakeyshia Moore, MBA, RHIA, CHCO
  Senior director of coding and reimbursement
  Texas Health Resources
  Arlington, Texas
  LakeyshiaMoore@texashealth.org

Moore is currently responsible for coding operations for 18 hospital entities. She has more than 17 years of HIM and healthcare experience, including in leadership, compliance, HIPAA, Recovery Audit Contractor, CDI, hospital coding, informatics, and project management. 

Some of her proudest accomplishments include decreasing the discharge not final billed (DNFB), successfully implementing an enterprise document imaging solution, and leading a successful ICD-10 implementation. She is currently serving as president elect for Dallas Fort Worth American Health Information Management Association and she is on the nomination committee for TXHIMA. In her free time, Moore loves spending time with family and friends, mentoring others, traveling, and shopping.
 

  Geoff New, MBA, RHIA, CRCR
  Vice President, Provider Solutions
  Ciox Health
  Prosper, Texas
  geoff_new@msn.com

New is an experienced leader with more than 27 years of experience in the healthcare industry. He joined Ciox Health in 2017. In his current role, he is responsible for designing, implementing and operationalizing revenue cycle solutions with a team of revenue cycle professionals, registered nurses, and physicians. Prior to joining Ciox Health, New led a team of employees across 130 locations and focused on revenue cycle, HIM operations, process re-engineering, regulatory compliance, and performance improvement initiatives for leading hospital systems around the country. He is an active member of numerous professional organizations, including the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), and Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA).
 

  Keri Smith, MSN, CNS, ACNS-BC
  Vice President, Provider Solutions
  CDI Specialist
  Winter Garden, Florida
  keri.duppenthaler@orlandohealth.com

Smith is a registered nurse, born and raised in Florida, with 15 years of experience—six years of which were in the role of a clinical nurse specialist. Smith’s background is neurological and neurosurgical nursing with experience as a neurological/neurosurgical educator, stroke program coordinator, and adult health clinical nurse specialist. In the role of clinical nurse specialist, she specialized in nursing process development, research and evidence-based practice performance, nursing policy creation, and served as a resource for nursing at all levels. Smith entered the role of a CDI specialist in October 2017, which allowed her to build new knowledge and brought her prior experience into the role to help streamline the CDI department within her hospital.
 

Ashley Vahey, BSN, RN, CCDS
CDI Specialist
Penn State Hershey Medical Center
Hershey, Pennsylvania
avahey@pennstatehealth.psu.edu

Bio and headshot coming soon…
 

  Jera Van Damme, BSN, RN, CCDS
  Senior Clinical Documentation Educator
  Essentia Health
  Duluth, Minnesota
  jera.vandamme@essentiahealth.org

Van Damme began her nursing career on a medical-surgical unit in 2010. In 2014, she moved into CDI and developed skills in concurrent and retrospective medical record review. Jera achieved the CCDS and began branching into outpatient CDI in 2017. She enjoys providing documentation education to colleagues and was recently promoted to senior clinical documentation educator at Essentia Health. She has presented for Minnesota ACDIS chapter meetings and for the Minnesota Health Information Management Association.

Click here to download the committee scope of work. For information about this committee, contact ACDIS Director Brian Murphy (bmurphy@acdis.org).

  Tracy Boldt, RN, BSN, CCDS, CDIP
  System manager of CDI
  Essentia Health System
  Duluth, Minnesota
  tracy.boldt@essentiahealth.org

Boldt has more than 15 years of healthcare experience, including nursing, administration, and consulting, specializing in hospital revenue cycle management. Specific to CDI, Boldt has led CDI engagements for clients representing small hospitals to larger integrated delivery networks with multi-site programs. She has successfully led CDI integration projects with interest in clinical documentation (inpatient and outpatient), and identifying process changes and workflow enhancement regarding how provider documentation is reflective of accurate patient care.

  Judy Dokken, MBA, CHDA, RHIT, CCS
  Revenue cycle manager
  Mayo Clinic
  Rochester, Minnesota
  dokken.judith@mayo.edu

In her current role, Dokken works with providers and coding staff to support quality documentation and code capture processes. After many years of facility and professional coding, Dokken transitioned to working with providers on billing requirements including ICD-10 implementation. After ICD-10 implementation, she began work on evaluation and management CPT documentation and coding. Later, her role expanded to include risk scores, patient complexity, hierarchical condition categories, and alternative payment models. Currently she supports the work of Mayo’s outpatient CDI program. 

  Tamara A. Hicks, RN, BSN, MHA, CCS, CCDS, ACM-RN
  Director of clinical documentation excellence (CDE)
  Wake Forest Baptist Health (WFBH)
  Winston-Salem, North Carolina
  thicks@wakehealth.edu

Hicks is responsible for the enterprise CDE department at WFBH’s five campuses. She was one of the original staff when WFBH rolled out its CDI program in 1999, and since then she has participated in expanding the program by adding all payer, severity of illness, risk of mortality, hospital acquired condition, and patient safety indicator reviews to the team’s workflow. Most recently, she has led the team though a restructuring and creation of the department of CDE as well as the creation of a new outpatient CDE team. Hicks holds a Diploma in nursing from Watts School of Nursing in Durham, North Carolina, and graduated summa cum laude from Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing. She obtained a master’s in health administration from Pfeiffer University in Charlotte. She has worked for WFBH for nearly 34 years, with 15 years of service as a staff nurse in the hospital's intermediate care unit and nine years as manager of care coordination. Hicks is also an AHIMA certified ICD-10-CM trainer and Six Sigma Green Belt. She is a member of American Case Management Association (ACMA), American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), and ACDIS, where she served as a founding member of the ACDIS Advisory Board and the CCDS Certification Board. She was re-elected to serve on the ACDIS Advisory Board for the 2016-2019 term.

  Fran Jurcak, MSN, RN, CCDS
  Vice president of clinical innovation
  Iodine Software
  Austin, Texas
  fran@iodinesoftware.com

Jurcak has more than 30 years of experience in the nursing profession and has spent the past ten years in CDI. She has utilized her clinical knowledge and experience to provide education, support process improvement, and report outcomes for CDI programs across the country. In her current role, she is responsible for clinical services and product development at Iodine Software. Her goal is to support healthcare systems as they seek to ensure accurate reflection of care provided and resources consumed in patient care via clinical documentation and medical record processes. Jurcak has worked side by side with CDI staff, CDI leaders, and corporate executives to develop workflows and processes that support positive outcomes demonstrating CDI program success. She received the 2017 ACDIS Achievement Award for CDI Professional Achievement and currently serves on the ACDIS CCDS Certification Board, the ACDIS Advisory Board, and the University of Michigan School of Nursing Alumni Board of Governors. Jurcak is the author of the CCDS Exam Study Guide and is recognized as a national speaker by ACDIS and has presented at many chapter conferences and HCPro webinars.

  James Manz, MD
  Spine and neurological surgery consultant
  Mayo Enterprise Health System
  Eau Claire, Wisconsin
  manz.james@mayo.edu

Manz services as physician chair of the Mayo Enterprise Outpatient CDI Subcommittee, physician vice chair for the Mayo Enterprise Inpatient CDI Subcommittee, and physician advisor of the Mayo Clinic Problem List Stewardship Committee. He is the co-author of the ACDIS Pocket Guide and has been a frequent speaker at ACDIS national conferences.

  Shannon E. McCall, RHIA, CCS, CCS-P, CPC, CPC-I, CEMC, CRC, CCDS
  Director of HIM/coding
  HCPro
  Middleton, Massachusetts
  smccall@hcpro.com

McCall directs all of HCPro’s Certified Coder Boot Camp® programs. She is the developer of the Certified Coder Boot Camp®—Inpatient Version and the Evaluation and Management Boot Camp®. Most recently she collaborated with the CDI team to develop the Risk Adjustment Documentation and Coding Boot Camp®. As a consultant for HCPro, she works with hospitals, medical practices, and other healthcare providers on a wide range of coding-related issues with a particular focus on education, coding reviews, and audits. McCall has extensive experience with coding for both physician and hospital services. Prior to joining HCPro, she worked for a national medical practice management company, where her duties included serving as a client manager and an in-house coding trainer. She also previously worked for a national consulting firm focusing on hospital inpatient, outpatient, and ER services. McCall previously served on the ACDIS advisory board. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Health Information Administration from the Medical University of South Carolina.

  Karen Newhouser, RN, BSN, CCM, CCDS, CCS, CDIP
  Director of CDI education
  MedPartners
  Tampa, Florida
  karenmpu@medpartnershim.com

Newhouser’s current role at MedPartners helped her find her niche in education through writing, speaking, and personal engagement. Within multiple roles spanning a 40-year-career in critical care nursing, case management, and CDI, Newhouser has been resolute in her mission to set people up for success. Newhouser was honored as the 2015 CDI Professional of the Year by ACDIS and was a member of the ACDIS Advisory Board.

  Diana Ortiz, JD, RN, CDIP, CCDS
  Revenue cycle marketing manager, CDI product owner
  3M Health Information Systems, Inc. 
  Wausau, Wisconsin
  dortiz3@mmm.com

Previously, Ortiz was the director for ambulatory CDI at Ochsner Health System in New Orleans, Louisiana. Since joining Ochsner in 2013, her roles included serving as a project manager as well as inpatient CDI operations manager. During this time, she coordinated the implementation of computer-assisted coding and metrics reporting for the CDI department. Ortiz has a nursing background in both the emergency and the psychiatric setting, and HIM experience in hospital emergency facility coding and database management.  

  Laurie Prescott, MSN, RN, CCDS, CCDS-O, CDIP, CRC
  CDI education director
  HCPro
  Middleton, Massachusetts
  lprescott@hcpro.com

Prescott serves as a full-time instructor for the CDI Boot Camps as well as a subject matter expert for ACDIS. She is a frequent speaker on HCPro/ACDIS webinars and is the author of the CDI Specialist’s Complete Training Guide. Prescott started her nursing career in 1985 as a graduate of the University of Vermont School of Nursing. Since that time, she has worked at a variety of organizations including academic, large and small community hospitals. She has worked in a number of nursing roles including as manager in the areas of medical/surgical, ICU, PACU, and endoscopy. Her experience also includes specialization as a compliance officer. She completed her MSN with a focus in nursing education at the University of Phoenix and taught nursing as an adjunct instructor to ADN students. She continued her focus of nursing education in various roles. In 2007, Prescott left this role to develop and implement a CDI program and remained in this role until joining ACDIS in August of 2013.

  Jessica M. Vaughn RN, BSN, CCDS
  Manager of outpatient clinical documentation excellence (CDE)
  Wake Forest Baptist Health (WFBH)
  Winston-Salem, North Carolina
  jessvaug@wakehealth.edu

In her current role, Vaughn is responsible for leading the outpatient CDE team for WFBH’s network physicians, consisting of 127 ambulatory locations and 317 providers. She has experience as an inpatient clinical documentation specialist and as a clinical documentation compliance coordinator, where she was instrumental in creating a collaborative approach with both quality and coding departments to institutionalize a workflow for accurate reporting of hospital acquired conditions and patient safety indicators. Vaughn was the recipient of the 2016 ACDIS Recognition of CDI Professional Achievement award. Over the past three years, she has helped create and structure processes for the newly formed outpatient CDE team. She holds an associate’s degree in nursing from Surry Community College in Dobson, North Carolina, and graduated with president’s honors from Chamberlain University in Addison, Illinois, with a bachelor of science in nursing. She is a member of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing and obtained her master’s degree in nursing—executive leadership in the summer of 2018. She has worked for WFBH for nearly 21 years, with a combined 16 years of nursing service at the bedside in hematology and oncology acute care and in labor and delivery/GYN surgery at Northern Hospital of Surry County, in Mount Airy, North Carolina. She has also held certifications in oncology, chemo and bio therapy, as well as the AHIMA approved ICD-10-CM/PCS trainer. She is an active member of both North Carolina and national ACDIS.

  Yvonne Whitley RN, BSN, CPC, CRC, CDEO
  Ambulatory CDI manager
  Novant Health
  Charlotte, North Carolina
  yrwhitley@novanthealth.org

Whitley was one of the first CDI specialists tasked with creating this new department for Novant Health’s Medical Group in September 2013, as well as building one of the first ambulatory CDI programs in the country. She now leads a robust team that supports much of Novant Health’s Medical Group of over 530 physician locations and over 2,500 providers. Whitley obtained her BSN from the University of Maryland at Baltimore. She has been with Novant Health for the last 20 years and comes from a nursing background with 30 years in critical care, trauma, and open-heart ICUs. She also has experience as a clinical research coordinator for drug and device trials.

  Michelle M. Wieczorek, RHIT, RN, CPHQ
  Senior manager
  DHG Healthcare
  Erie, Pennsylvania
  michelle.wieczorek@dhgllp.com

Wieczorek combines 30 years of healthcare knowledge as a clinician, with subject matter expertise in CDI, HIM, and clinical quality in her role as leader of CDI services at DHG Healthcare. Wieczorek has served in leadership roles in critical care nursing, health information management, utilization review, clinical quality, and information technology and has practiced in acute, outpatient and managed care settings. She has extensive experience in software development and IT product management, including holding a US patent in natural language processing clinical rules logic as a result of her work in developing a CDI software program with a national IT vendor. Wieczorek is active in professional organizations and is presently an appointee to the CDI Practice Council of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), and was recognized by her peers with the Distinguished Member Award by the Pennsylvania HIMA in 2016. Michelle is a sought-after author and speaker on topics such as electronic health records, CDI, risk adjustment, and clinical quality. She has presented webinars for ACDIS, AHIMA, and the American Hospital Association. She has contributed to publications such as the CDI Journal (ACDIS), the Journal of AHIMA, and is presently on the Editorial Board of ICD-10 Monitor. Wieczorek is based in Western Pennsylvania and travels nationally leading consulting engagements to deploy best practice tools and methodologies for clinical documentation, risk adjustment, and revenue integrity.

  Haaris Ali, MD, CDIP 
  Director of CDI services
  Prospect Holdings at the Nix Health Hospital
  San Antonio, Texas
  Hali1@nixhealth.com

Dr. Ali has served as a leader providing oversight and expertise in CDI, denials management, utilization review, process improvement, and case management. He has trained hundreds of physicians and nurses in denials management, and centralized, standardized, and scaled appeals departments. He currently serves on the Texas ACDIS leadership team and formerly served on the Washington ACDIS Evergreen chapter leadership team.
 

  Valerie A. Bica, RN, BSN, CPN 
  Lead CDI specialist
  Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children
  Wilmington, Delaware
  Valerie.bica@nemours.org

She has 40 years of pediatric/neonatal intensive care unit nursing experience, including case and care management, managed Medicaid, acute care pediatrics, pediatric and neonatal intensive care unit, and high-tech pediatric homecare. She served on the ACDIS Pediatric Respiratory Failure Work Group and is a co-leader for the pediatric ACDIS chapter. Bica also served on the 2017 ACDIS Conference Committee and was a contributing author to the book Pediatric CDI: Building Blocks for Success.
 

  Candace Blankenship, RN, BSN, CCDS
  CDI specialist
  Mayo Clinic  
  Jacksonville, Florida 
  Blankenship.Candace@mayo.edu

Blankenship's journey in CDI began in 2014 in Baltimore City, where she worked until joining the Mayo Clinic CDI team. In 2016, Blankenship was awarded the ACDIS Rookie of the Year award and presented on the topic of APR-DRGs at the 2017 ACDIS Conference. She worked closely with Elsevier to develop effective APR-DRG tools for their CDI education software and was a contributing author to the book Pediatric CDI: Building Blocks for Success. Blankenship is the chair of the Regulatory Committee.
 

  Donald A. Butler, RN, BSN
  Director of the clinical documentation physician advisor program
  Vidant Health
  Greeneville, North Carolina 
  DButler@vidanthealth.com

Butler previously served for eight years implementing and managing the 11 member CDI team at Vidant Medical Center in Greenville, a 900-bed tertiary care center serving the eastern third of North Carolina. He served 11 years as a United States Navy nurse with a broad variety of clinical and leadership experiences. He was honored as the 2011 CDI Professional of the Year by ACDIS and has served a term on the ACDIS Advisory Board.
 

  Lori Drodge, RHIT, CCS
  DRG Coordinator and CDI liaison
  Acute care hospital
  Maine
  LDrodge@mmc.org

Drodge has 30 years of experience in the HIM field. She was a coding supervisor for 15 years and has served as a member of the Kennebec Valley Community College Health Information Technology Advisory Board where she taught ICD-9-CM. She has also served as co-chair of MeHIMA’s Data & Reimbursement Committee and is an approved AHIMA ICD-10-CM/PCS Trainer. She has trained CDI teams and coding professionals throughout the United States in her work as a consultant and has presented at various state conferences. Lori is currently serving as co-chair of the regulatory committee.
 

  Andrea Eastwood, BAS, RHIA
  System director, clinical encounter and documentation excellence
  Trinity Health
  Livonia, Michigan
  Andrea.Eastwood@trinity-health.org

Eastwood is a health information management professional with more than 25 years of experience working in both acute and ambulatory care settings. She has worked at Trinity Health for the past 21 years at the corporate office and hospital setting in various leadership roles including CDI, HIM, care coordination, case management and cancer program leadership. In her current role, she is responsible for CDI program leadership and oversight for the organization for both inpatient and outpatient CDI. She has presented on CDI topics at multiple national conferences.
 

  Faisal Hussain, MD, CCDS, CDIP, CCS 
  Corporate CDI director in clinical services
  Large multi-hospital health system
  Tennessee
  smfaisalhussain@hotmail.com

Prior to his current role, Dr. Hussain managed the CDI program at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset and was involved in numerous initiatives, including changing the workflow for patient safety indicators/hospital-acquired conditions, updating query forms for ICD-10 compliance, and creating action plans to collaborate with case management to reduce symptom DRGs. He has served on the ACDIS Conference Committee since 2016, and was also part of 2018 ACDIS CDI Week Committee. He has spoken on ACDIS Radio and was a presenter at the 11th annual ACDIS Conference in San Antonio.
 

  Jeannie Kelly, RN, CCDS, BS, MHA
  Senior consultant 
  Pinnacle Enterprise Risk Consulting 
  Vero Beach, Florida
  jkelly@askphc.com

Kelly is a skilled and accomplished healthcare consultant with more than 25 years of experience, possessing extensive experience in healthcare provider quality of care and Medicare payment safeguard functions, including Medicare policies and procedures, coverage and subrogation as well as case and risk management, reconsideration and appeals, fraud and abuse, compliance, and provider and beneficiary education. She conducted quality assurance of fact-finding surveys and complaint investigations conducted on behalf of CMS to verify healthcare entities’ (hospitals, including EMTALA, ambulatory surgical centers, long term care facilities, home health agencies, hospice and ESRD) compliance with federal quality standards. She worked at a Fiscal Intermediary as an Operations Manager, managing Part A and Part B programs. Jeannie has directed a variety of Medicare projects, including program integrity verification and validation projects, Medicare secondary payer, Medicare medical review (including medical necessity reviews), reconsideration and appeals, fraud and abuse, and DMERC (a.k.a. DMEPOS) program operations, as well as claims research and claims scripting for 1-800-MEDICARE. Jeannie is a Subject Matter Expert in the CMS Two Midnight Rule and medical necessity determinations.
 

  James S. Kennedy, MD, CCS, CCDS, CDIP
  President
  CDIMD-Physician Champions
  Nashville, Tennessee
  jkennedy@cdimd.com

Dr. Kennedy's expertise includes physician and hospital leadership, healthcare systems improvement, healthcare documentation and coding compliance, and government relations. He previously served on the ACDIS advisory board. Dr. Kennedy is also the lead instructor for the ACDIS/HCPro boot camp The Physician Advisor’s Role in CDI.
 

  Teresa Krepps, RHIT, CCS, CCDS
  Educator, clinical documentation excellence
  Johns Hopkins Health System
  Baltimore, Maryland
  tkrepps1@jhmi.edu

Krepps has more than 30 years of experience working in clinical documentation, regulatory finance, and hospital coding. As a consultant, she piloted and implemented some of the first CDI programs in Maryland hospitals. In her current role, Krepps works with providers to increase awareness of the effect of their documentation on publicly reported healthcare data and research. She also works closely with CDI specialists and HIM/coding staff at Johns Hopkins to ensure compliant, consistent documentation, and coding for acute inpatient hospital encounters.
 

  Cesar Limjoco, MD 
  Chief medical officer 
  T-Medicus 
  Indianapolis, Indiana
  dr_cesar_limjoco@me.com

For more than 25 years, Dr. Limjoco has focused on assisting hospitals in establishing clinical documentation integrity and delivered CDI services to critical access hospitals, community hospitals, regional referral centers, large academic medical centers, and multi-facility health systems located throughout the United States. He works with the hospital leadership, medical staff, CDI teams, coding units, quality and utilization management, appeals management, clinical dietitians, wound care, laboratory, and physical/occupational therapy. He has built a solid reputation of integrity and accuracy through a commitment to documentation and coding excellence that leads to accurate reporting of patient data. Dr. Limjoco’s philosophy is to provide the most accurate documentation of the patient encounter. This is accomplished through peer-to-peer physician education with the principal focus on the underlying CLINICAL TRUTH™️. Dr. Limjoco’s career path has brought him to work for a regional hospital association, a big four consulting firm, and a state quality improvement organization. A prolific author on clinical documentation and coding, he has presented at ACDIS national conferences, AHIMA national conference, various state and local AHIMA, HFMA and HCCA conferences. Dr. Limjoco has also been a guest speaker in national webinars and podcasts. He is also an editorial board member for the ICD10monitor.
 

  Angelica Naylor, MBA, BSN, RN, CCDS
  CDI supervisor
  North Kansas City Hospital
  North Kansas City, Missouri
  angelica.naylor@outlook.com

With a love and desire for CDI advancement, ethics, and quality improvement, Naylor relocated to the Midwest after working as a CDI specialist for a major corporate health system in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, where she received numerous awards for her fast-paced learning style, professionalism, and swift rise in CDI. Awards included Corporate Top Performer (multiple quarters) and Corporate CDI specialist Rookie of the Year. She also served as CDI mentor to fellow CDI specialists, especially in PCS coding and DRG assignment. Naylor possesses a wealth of knowledge and experience in many areas of nursing: Trauma/surgical/neuro ICU, burn ICU, PACU/recovery, utilization review, case management, and quality/risk management. Naylor has brought much success to the CDI program at her hospital by integrating a more collaborative workflow and relationship between CDI and HIM, establishing new CDI training, revising physician education, participating in denials management, and maintaining direct involvement with monthly hospitalist meetings. Naylor is a co-chair leader of the Kansas City ACDIS chapter.
 

  Joan Oliver, MHA, BSN, RN, ACM, CCDS
  CDI specialist
  Duke University Hospital
  Durham, North Carolina
  joan.oliver@duke.edu

In her current role as a CDI specialist, Oliver covers the cardiothoracic and CCU teams. Before joining the CDI team, Oliver worked in case management and assisting in embedding case management in the ED at Duke University. She has also worked as a legal nurse consultant, an ICU nurse, and home care nurse. She completed her MHA and in addition to her CCDS certification, holds a ACM certification. During her years as a case manager, she assisted on the planning committee of the North Carolina chapter of ACMA.
 

  Howard Rodenberg, MD, MPH, CCDS
  Physician advisor for CDI 
  Baptist Health
  Jacksonville, Florida
  Howard.Rodenberg@bmcjax.com

An emergency physician by training, he has served as an associate professor at the University of Florida; as emergency services medical director; and as health department director for Florida’s Volusia County and the state of Kansas; he has also worked with NASA. He has authored multiple publications and book chapters and given presentations around the world. His writing is featured on the ACDIS blog as well as at writingwithscissors.blogspot.com.

  Joanne Schade-Boyce, MS, BSDH, CPC, ACS
  Director of revenue integrity 
  Large healthcare system
  Maine
Schade-Boyce has more than 35 years of experience working in both acute and ambulatory care settings with a master of science focused on education and management from Old Dominion University. She has been a lead instructor of educational courses for most of her career, and an expert in the development of user-friendly training and instructional manuals. Her areas of expertise include outpatient revenue cycle audits for hospital departments, surgical coding boot camps, as well as extensive experience natively coding and educating utilizing the ICD-10 coding system for HIM departments across the country. She was the creator of an ICD-10-PCS webinar series where she coined the phrase “Mental Gymnastics with Root Operations”. Schade-Boyce is a nationally recognized speaker and her lectures include groups such as Annual AHIMA Conferences, AHIMA State Chapters, AAPC State and Local Chapters, and other prestigious organizations.

Click here to download the committee's scope of work. For questions about the committee, contact ACDIS Editor and Committee Coordinator Linnea Archibald (larchibald@acdis.org).
 

  Johanne “Jo” Brautigam, BSN, RN, CCDS
  CDI manager
  Roper St. Francis Healthcare
  Charleston, South Carolina
  johanne.brautigam@ropersaintfrancis.com

Brautigam manages a team of 11 CDI specialists which covers three, soon-to-be four, hospitals in the low country. She earned her associate degree in nursing in 1986 from Rancho Santiago College in Southern California, her bachelor’s degree in 1999 from the University of Utah and was a CCRN for 20 years. She has more than 25 years of experience as a critical care nurse, working throughout the Unites States and the United Kingdom. After settling in Charleston, she took the leap into CDI in 2010, earned her CCDS in 2011, and took on the role of manager in 2012. When she doesn’t have her nose in the records, she enjoys camping and boating with her family. Currently, she is focused on denials prevention in sepsis, malnutrition, and orthopedic conservative measures.
 

  Judy Cassetty, BSN, RN, CCDS
  Manager of CDI and quality auditors/Interim CDI educator
  Providence St. Joseph Health System
  Irvine, California
  Judy.Cassetty@stjoe.org

Cassetty is the manager of CDI and quality auditors system-wide at Providence St. Joseph Health System based in Irvine, California. She has been in CDI for 11 years, including as CDI specialist, auditor/second-level reviewer, regional manager of CDI, and CDI educator. She served 17 years as a school board trustee in Bushland, Texas, and has been a speaker for the Texas Association of School Boards. Cassetty has written articles in For the Record and was featured in the CDI Journal.
 

  Deb Dallos, RN
  CDI program supervisor
  Sarasota Memorial Hospital
  Sarasota, Florida
  Deb-Dallos@smh.com

Dallos has nearly 30 years nursing experience with 22 years in critical care and six in CDI. Dallos is a past chair of the Florida ACDIS Local Chapter and a member of the ACDIS national Chapter Advisory Board. She is an EXCEL award winner at SMH (house-wide employee recognition program), and the former chair of both the house-wide and unit-based Global Unit Practice Council at SMH.
 

  Teresa Downie, RN, CCDS
  CDI specialist/care manager
  TSN Nurse Consulting
  Vidalia, Georgia
  tdownie@bellsouth.net

Downie is a CDI specialist/care manager at TSN Nurse Consulting in Vidalia, Georgia. She has been involved in clinical documentation in some capacity since the late 1990s and even attended the first ACDIS conference and sat for the first CCDS exam in May 2009. After listening to a keynote speaker at one of the conferences, Downie worked up the courage to pursue her BSN degree, even in her fifties.
 

  Julian Everett, BSN, RN, CDIP
  CDI specialist
  Orlando Health
  Orlando, Florida
  julian_everett@yahoo.com

Everett is a CDI specialist, level 3, at Arnold Palmer Medical Center in Orlando, Florida, where she serves as the physician/CDI liaison for pediatric mortality review. With more than 11 years of experience in the health field, Everett has provided mentorship to graduate nurses and new CDI specialists as well as CDI training to more than 100 physicians throughout her facility.
 

  Erin Head, MBA, RHIA, CHDA, CHRS-TR
  Director of HIM and medical staff services
  Parrish Medical Center
  Titusville, Florida
  Erin.Head@parrishmed.com

Head is an active professional in the healthcare field and currently serves as the director of health information management, quality, and medical staff services at Parrish Medical Center. Additionally, she is a contract coder and coding auditor with Code and Comply Specialists. She holds the credentials of a registered health information administrator, certified health data analyst, and certified healthcare technology specialist.
 

  Linda Jackson, RHIT
  Director of HIM
  Arkansas State Hospital
  Little Rock, Arkansas
  Linda.Jackson2@dhs.arkansas.gov

Jackson is the HIM director at Arkansas State Hospital in Little Rock. She has more the 35 years of experience, starting her career as a file clerk in the HIM department. Since then, she worked 11 years as a supervisor in birth defect research and the Arkansas Birth Defects Registry and as a supervisor visiting hospitals across Arkansas to collect information on children born with a birth defect. Jackson has spent the last eight years in her current role.
 

  Molly Siebert, RHIA, CCDS
  CDI specialist
  Legacy Health System
  Portland, Oregon
  msiebert@lhs.org

Siebert joined her facility’s CDI program in 2013, coming from a background in HIM since 1975. In that role, she spent time working for a quality improvement organization conducting Medicare reviews. Her experience includes time working in hospitals on quality, trauma and cancer registries, systemwide EHR development, and HIM operations management.

Siebert is past-president of the Oregon Northwest ACDIS local chapter and helped the team develop updated bylaws to include current standard board practices including financial duties and board structure. She co-authored an ACDIS white paper proposing CDI minimal documentation standards. She had been active in professional associations and civic groups, serving on the OrHIMA board, and participating in two different AHIMA work groups. She is also a member of the ACDIS Chapter Advisory Board.
 

  Elisa Sninchak, M.Ed, BSN, RN, CCDS, CDIP, CCS
  Clinical documentation excellence educator
  Novant Health
  Charlotte/Winston-Salem, North Carolina
  ehsninchak@novanthealth.org  

Sninchak is the educator for clinical documentation excellence with Novant Heath, a large health system based in Charlotte and Winston Salem, North Carolina, which includes 15 acute-care facilities. She has 21 years of nursing experience, including 14 years at the bedside in a level one trauma center and five years in the CDI profession. In her current role, she facilitates development and standardization of educational content and initiatives. She approaches documentation best practice from a patient safety and quality perspective and is passionate about individual professional engagement. In 2016, she developed a new orientation program, including more robust coding and quality overviews, resulting in 100% retention of new team-members. Sninchak is a frequent speaker and contributor for ACDIS and co-founded the ACDIS CDI Educator networking group in 2017, co-leading the chapter from 2017-2019.