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 Editorial Director and Committee Coordinator Melissa Varnavas (mvarnavas@acdis.org).

Board Members: Kristie Alexander from Texas, Leola Burke from North Carolina, James Doster from Georgia, Amanda Just from Oklahoma, Branda McCowan from Pennsylvania, Angelica Naylor from Missouri, Kristie Perry from Tennessee, Rani Stoddard from California, Aimee Van Balen from Massachusetts, and Melissa Varnavas (committee coordinator).

  Kristie Alexander, BSN, RN, CCDS
  CDI manager
  Texas Health Resources
  Arlington, Texas

Alexander, along with another colleague, manages a staff of 39 CDI specialists across 13 entities in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.  She has eight years’ experience in CDI, six as CDI manager/educator and two as a CDI specialist. Prior joining the CDI field, she served as manager of the neurosurgical ICU at Texas Health Fort Worth, and also held prior roles as quality improvement coordinator at both Texas Health Arlington Memorial and Texas Health Alliance. Her 26 years of nursing experiencing includes adult critical care/neurosurgical critical care, medical-surgical and home health in both small community and large health organization settings. She has served on the leadership team for the Texas Chapter of ACDIS for the past three years.

  Leola Burke, MHSA, CCS                                         
  Independent HIM/revenue cycle consultant
  Charles George VA Medical Center
  Ashville, North Carolina

Burke has more than 20 years of experience in HIM, MS-DRGs, APR-DRGs, Ambulatory Payment Classifications, DRG case mix index (CMI) analysis, physician current procedure terminology coding, evaluation and management coding, and revenue cycle compliance. She has worked with academic medical centers, community hospitals, long term acute care hospitals, rehabilitation hospitals, veterans’ association medical centers, physician practices, and ambulatory surgery centers. Burke has also authored and contributed to a number of articles, practice briefs, and projects across the healthcare industry. She currently serves as the North Carolina ACDIS and AHIMA chapter liaison and social media chair for the North Carolina AHIMA component.

  James (Jamie) Doster, MS, BSN, CCDS
  CDI manager
  Emory University Hospital Midtown
  Atlanta, Georgia

Doster has more than 11 years of experience in CDI and more than 10 years in the ED and cardiac catheter lab prior to his career in CDI. He is currently working on a doctorate in nursing practice. Doster is a founding leader of the Georgia ACDIS local chapter where he and the volunteer leadership team were able to enact evolving bylaws, increase membership yearly, set a focus on quarterly education meetings, and an annual community service work with financial donations to local non-profits. He joined the CAB in 2019 in order to share experiences with founding organizations, share community involvement opportunities, encourage membership engagement, and his own personal professional development.

  Amanda Just, RN, BSN, CCDS
  System director CDI
  ITNEGRIS Health
  Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Just has been a nurse for 15 years with experience in critical care and home health quality. She began her journey in CDI more than eight years ago, spending the last five years leading her CDI team. She has made it her mission to assist CDI programs growth across Oklahoma. She helped in establishing the first Oklahoma ACDIS local chapter in 2018 and served as a member of the chapter leadership team. Just believes by supporting a local chapter all members can build their CDI program to become more recognized, resilient, and robust. Currently, she is working towards obtaining her MSN in nursing informatics. She plans on using her informatics education to help increase utilization of data to drive CDI outcomes within her program. 

  Angelica Naylor, MBA, BSN, RN, CCDS, CCS
  Senior Healthcare Performance Advisor
  3M Health Information Systems
  Salt Lake City, Utah

Naylor is a senior healthcare performance advisor with 3M Health Information Systems. Naylor has six years of CDI experience including direct CDI management of a Midwest hospital and manager in CDI consulting services. Her background includes critical care nursing in the trauma/surgical/neurological ICU, as well as in utilization review, case management, and quality/risk management.

Naylor has been a speaker at the 2021 National ACDIS Conference, guest speaker on The ACDIS Podcast, and guest columnist in the CDI Journal. She is a former Kansas City ACDIS Chapter Leader and currently serves on the ACDIS Chapter Advisory Board, ACDIS Regulatory Committee, and chair of the ACDIS Diversity & Inclusion Task Force.

  Kristie Perry, RN, MHSA, CCDS, CCS
  CDI manager
  Erlanger Health System
  Chattanooga, Tennessee

Perry has nearly 30 years of experience in nursing, particularly in the ICU. She moved into a CDI role more than 13 years ago and concentrated on record reviews related to trauma and critical care, before moving into a managerial role. She has been a member of the patient safety indicator committee at Erlanger and provided extensive education to the surgical residents as well as the surgery/trauma surgery attending physicians.

Perry joined the Tennessee ACDIS local chapter in 2013 and stepped forward to serve as a member of its leadership team in 2014. She joined the CAB in 2019 in order to learn more about other chapters and develop ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Tennessee chapter. Perry also served as a member of the 2017 CDI Week Committee and has been a co-presenter for an HCPro webinar related to trauma CDI.

  Rani Vivian Stoddard, MBA, RN, CPHQ, RHIA, CCDS, CCS, CDIP
  CDI supervisor
  Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital
  Valencia, California

Stoddard has been a CDI supervisor for more than six years. She assists a five-person team consisting of nurses, coding professionals, and foreign medical graduate physicians. She came to CDI from quality, teaching, healthcare marketing, blood donor nursing, intensive care, medical-surgical nursing, and rehabilitation nursing. Stoddard has been active in the California ACDIS local chapter since 2016, serving as its secretary and CA ACDIS Connection newsletter editor. Through her efforts and the work of her colleagues on the leadership team, the California ACDIS chapter has been able to hold in-person annual conferences gathering more than 100 attendees and grow its membership to more than 600 participants. She joined the CAB in 2019 where she hopes to bring back leadership tools to the volunteers in California and share successful tips the California ACDIS chapter has developed since its inception nearly a decade ago. Stoddard is a previous speaker at the ACDIS national conference in Las Vegas in 2017 and poster presenter in 2018.

  Aimee Van Balen, RN, BSN, CCDS
  Senior CDI specialist
  Lifespan Corporation
  Providence, Rhode Island

Van Balen has been working in the CDI field for more than nine years. In her current role, she reviews charts and educates providers, serving as a resource to peers and helping to train new staff. She also reviews charts concurrently for hospital-acquired conditions/patient safety indicators, mortality and length of stay risk adjustment, and pre-bill retrospective mortality charts for risk adjustment optimization.

She joined the Massachusetts ACDIS local chapter in 2015 and served as a co-leader of the group for three years. During that time, she helped the group create bylaws, build membership, and incorporate a strong emphasis on CDI education for its events. Van Balen also helped the chapter collaborate with the Massachusetts and New York chapters of AHIMA on a full-day Northeast CDI & Coding Symposium which had its third successful event in 2018.

She joined the CAB in 2017 and is a past-presenter at the ACDIS national conference in 2017. She’s been a featured ACDIS Radio guest in both 2017 and 2018 and was elected to the ACDIS Advisory Board in 2020.

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

CCDS Subcommittee: Marie Bourque-Namer, Sharme Brodie, Mary Carol Brouwer, Cheryl Ericson, Patricia Henry, Fran Jurcak, Roshan Shetty, Dawn Valdez, Susanne Warford, Dorene Watson, Gail Weldon, and Irina Zusman.

CCDS-O Subcommittee:

  Tracy Boldt, RN, BSN, CCDS, CDIP
  System manager of CDI
  Essentia Health System
  Duluth, Minnesota

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.
 

  Vicki Galyean, RN, BSN, CCDS
  CDI Team Leader
  Wake Forest Baptist Health
  Winston-Salem, North Carolina 

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 

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.
 

  Crystal Incorvaia, RN, CCDS, CRC
  Regional manager of CDI
  Ensamble
  Toledo, Ohio

Incorvaia is a regional CDI Manager that oversees several facilities and CDI teams. She began CDI career in 2012 and has previous clinical experience at a Level 1 Trauma Center Med/Surg, telemetry, and ICU step-down. Incorvaia has developed working relationships with physicians and provided education to new clinical documentation team members as well as ancillary staff regarding the value of CDI across the continuum of care. She holds the following certifications of CCDS and CRCR.
 

  Kanar Kokoy, RHIA, CDIP
  Founder and CEO
  Chirok Health
  Brentwood, Tennessee

Kokoy is the founder of Chirok Health with over 17 years of experience specializing in HIM and CDI operations including APC auditing and rebilling services, RAC readiness assessments, charge description master reviews, inpatient MS-DRG, and outpatient OPPS coding assessments, physician practice coding, HCC/risk adjustment coding, HIM operation, clinical decision support system, meaningful use, and MIPS.

Kokoy has served in positions such as National SME & Provider Documentation Educator for implementing, maintaining, or enhancing the CDI program for both inpatient and outpatient services. She has served as the role of clinical documentation practitioner educator, vice president of CDI, consulting director of CDI, director of HIM, and director of corporate and compliance integrity. She also has served multiple roles as the principal consultant for coding and compliance operations. Her responsibilities included regional product-line management for inpatient coding, outpatient coding, charge description master, coding compliance product, CDI, risk adjustment coding, HIM operations, and coding/documentation education.

Currently, she serves as the founder of Chirok Health with a focus on enhancing provider documentation and understanding of coding. Prior to Chirok Health, she served as the principal consultant/national SME for IKS Health for the CDI and coding line of business and as the corporate director of CDI for Ardent Health Services, where she managed CDI programs for over 35 hospitals across the nation.

Kokoy is a frequent contributor to many HIM and healthcare compliance publications. She has presented numerous educational seminars throughout the country.
 

  Dee Lang, RHIT, CCDS
  Product & Domain Expert for CDI/CAC Technology
  Dolbey Systems
  Greensburg, Pennsylvania

Accomplished HIM professional with 40 years of experience, specializing in product leadership and management, product marketing, technology, and workflow operations. Product management experience with natural language processing (NLP), CDI, and revenue cycle management software applications for coding and auditing. Strategic business planner and developer experience. Goal-oriented healthcare professional who leverages holistic experience.
 

  Dawn Miller, BSN, RN, CCDS, CPC-A
  Clinical Documentation Coordinator
  Henry Ford Health System
  Detroit, Michigan

Miller is a clinical documentation coordinator for Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan. Finally finding her professional calling, she started as a frontline CDI specialist in 2017, before transitioning to the role of educator in 2019. Fulfilling her passion for education, Miller trains newly hired CDI specialists and maintains an ongoing supportive presence as they adapt to CDI life at their primary site. She also provides targeted educational support for more experienced CDI specialists. In addition to education, Miller has a zeal for all things query related. Viewing query writing as an art form with rules (which appeals to both her creative side and type A personality), she embraces the entire query process, from inception to conclusion, with gusto. Miller is co-chair of the query template revision committee, and as a query auditor, she identified the need for and authored query standards for the health system. When not focused on education or queries, Miller assists with denials and appeals, contributes educational material for presentations, is co-editor of the monthly CDI newsletter and collaborates with coding on diagnosis specific projects.

Miller graduated from Valparaiso University in 1998 with a BSN. She earned her CPC in 2017 and CCDS in 2020.
 

  Sonja Racke, RN, BSBM, CPC, CRCR
  Regional Manager of CDI
  Ensemble Health Partners
  Fort Wright, Kentucky

Racke has over 35 years of nursing experience in the Northern Kentucky, Cincinnati Metropolitan area. She has worked as a CMS contractor in multiple areas of regulatory compliance and has served as an expert witness alongside the OIG in prosecuting Medicare fraud. Racke assisted ARHQ in mapping and configuring the PSIs with the conversion to ICD-10, as well as performing medical necessity and DRG validation audits for the CMS RAC. Racke began her career in Clinical Documentation Improvement in 2019 with Ensemble Health Partners as the Regional Manager of CDI for the Southwest Ohio Region, leading and overseeing the CDI teams of five acute care facilities. She is a proud mother of three, grandmother of five and enjoys time camping with family and dogs and volunteering through several organizations in her community.
 

  Alyce Reavis, RN,MSN,CCDS
  CDI and Utilization Review Specialist
  Evangelical Community Hospital
  Lweisburg, Pennsylvania

Reavis has been a registered nurse for close to ten years after being a public educator for twelve years. Currently she is a specialist in the areas of Utilization Review and CDI with Evangelical Community Hospital in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. She thoroughly enjoys the work of CDI and helped in creating a departmental goal that was shared with the hospitalist team and coding teams. Reavis developed educational sessions and materials to help team members prepare for the CCDS exam in addition to developing an orientation program for utilization review. She successfully completed the CCDS exam in October of 2020. Reavis loves the profession of nursing and its broad scope of opportunity. She obtained my MSN in 2017 and intends on completing her doctoral degree in the future. Reavis firmly believes in teamwork and accomplishing all goals or objectives that ultimately benefit the patients that she serves.
 

  Keri Smith, MSN, CNS, ACNS-BC
  Vice President, Provider Solutions
  CDI Specialist
  Winter Garden, Florida

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 

Bio and headshot coming soon…
 

  Jera Van Damme, BSN, RN, CCDS
  Senior Clinical Documentation Educator
  Essentia Health
  Duluth, Minnesota

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.
 

  Ashley Walker, BSN, RN, CCDS
  Documentation Educator
  Birmingham VA Medical Center
  Trussville, Alabama

With 10 years in the nursing field, Walker began her pursuit in the area of clinical documentation in 2015. She took a break to serve as a clinical coordinator for a cardiologist, but documentation continued to hold her key interest. She is now a documentation educator at the VA Medical Center and has earned her CCDS. Her clinical background includes med-surg, cardiac ICU, and PACU nursing. She holds a BSN from Tuskegee University. While documentation is her passion, her greatest joy comes from her daughter.

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

  Nurse Planner
  Shelia A. Bullock, DHA, BSN, MBA, CCDS, CCS, CAHIMS
  Associate professor/ANCC nurse planner
  University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC)/ACDIS
Jackson, Mississippi

Bullock, associate professor of health informatics and information management programs, helped start the CDI program at UMMC in 2007. An ACDIS Advisory Board member from 2009 to 2011, she 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.

  Johanne “Jo” Brautigam, RN, CCDS
  CDI manager
  Roper Saint Francis Healthcare
  Charleston, South Carolina
  Johanne.Brautigam@rsfh.com

After 25 years in critical care, Brautigam took the leap into CDI in 2011. She became CDI manager in 2013 and currently manages 11 CDI specialists, covering four hospitals. She is the president of the South Carolina ACDIS Chapter, a member of the ACDIS CDI Leadership Council and the ACDIS CDI Scholarship Committee, and a past member of the CDI Week Committee. She is co-author of The CDI Director’s Cut: A Guide for Effective Program Management and a subject matter expert for ACDIS.

  Rhoda Chism, BSN, RN, CCDS, CCS
  Manager, CDI audit and education
  Tenet Healthcare
  Dallas, Texas

Chism serves as the manager of CDI audit and education team at Tenet Healthcare, coming to the organization after having played an integral part in rolling out the CDI program in 2001 at her previous organization. She has more than 30 years nursing experience with an extensive background in critical care, emergency care, case management, utilization review, and clinical documentation improvement.

  Angie Comfort, RHIA, CDIP, CCS, CCS-P
  Assistant vice president, HIM operations
  LifePoint Health
  Brentwood, Tennessee
 angie.comfort@lpnt.net

Comfort has more than 30 years of experience in HIM operations, coding, and CDI.  Prior to joining LifePoint, she was the senior director of HIM Practice Excellence for AHIMA. Currently a member of ACDIS, AHIMA, and the Tennessee Health Information Management Association (where She serves as the THIMA president-elect), she is a subject matter expert for local, national and international engagements. She is currently enrolled in the Doctor of Business Administration program at Trevecca Nazarene University.

  Andrea J. Eastwood, RHIA
  System director, clinical encounter, and documentation excellence
  Trinity Health
  Detroit, Michigan

Eastwood has more than 25 years of HIM 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. Eastwood has presented on CDI topics at multiple national conferences.
 

  Karen Elmore, BSN, RN, CCDS
  Documentation Quality Coordinator
  BJC HealthCare
  St. Louis, Missouri

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.
 

  Julian Everett, BSN, RN, CDIP
  CDI specialist
  Orlando Health
  Orlando, Florida

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. She has presented on the ACDIS main conference stage.
 

  Denice Hebert, RN, CNOR, CCDS-O
  Ambulatory CDI specialist
  Ochsner Medical Center
  Houma, Louisiana   

Hebert serves as ambulatory CDI specialist since 2016 overseeing the podiatry specialty as well as assisting with primary care providers. Her 29 years of nursing background includes clinical work in neurosurgery, orthopedics, urology, and general surgery and served as clinic manager overseeing eight specialty clinics.  Hebert collaborates with EPIC diagnoses engine, providers, and IS to improve diagnoses descriptions and codes within EPIC. She has been recognized by Ochsner as an employee and leader of the month and is a member of the New Orleans ACDIS Chapter.  Her hobbies include fishing, baking, and spending time with family and friends.
 

  Cindy Hestir, RN, MSN, CCDS
  CDI specialist
  University of Missouri Health Care
  Columbia, Missouri

Hestir serves as a CDI specialist at University of Missouri Health Care, where she’s worked for more than 25 years. Her experience includes 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 visiting her children.
 

  Linda Jackson, RHIT
  Director of HIM
  Arkansas State Hospital
  Little Rock, Arkansas

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.
 

  Ellen Jantzer, RN, MSN, CCDS, CCS, CRC
  CDI manager
  Asante Health System
  Medford, Oregon

Jantzer has led the Asante CDI team for since 2012. Prior to CDI, Jantzer worked on the cardiology step-down unit and in ICU/CCU. She has experience in discharge planning, resource management, and denials management. In 2017, Asante expanded its CDI program to include the outpatient setting. Its focus is to assist primary care providers in improving the accuracy and specificity of their documentation related to Hierarchical Condition Categories and to ICD-10 codes in general. Jantzer presented at the 2017 ACDIS Outpatient CDI Symposium and at the NW ACDIS local chapter meeting in spring 2018. When not digging through medical records or buried in coding rules, Jantzer enjoys spending time with her husband Jason, her four adult children and their spouses, and her granddaughter hiking, camping, and rafting.
 

  Deb Jones, RN, MSN
  CDI Director
  Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Brigham Faulkner Hospital
  Boston, Massachusetts

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.
 

  Sandra Love, RN, BSN, CCDS, CCDS-O, CPC
  CDI coding analyst
  Wake Forest Baptist Health (WFH)
  Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Love served as an assistive coordinator, educator, and team leader for both the inpatient and outpatient clinical documentation excellence from 2015-2019. In 2012, she helped develop a pediatric CDI program for Brenner Children’s Hospital at WFH. As the previous president and active board member of North Carolina ACDIS Chapter, she has spoken at numerous meetings, presentations, and educational activities, as well as at the 2018 ACDIS Conference and 2018 Outpatient ACDIS Symposium. She has extensive experience in program development, expansion, and alignment.
 

  Caryn Nowak, RHIA, CDIP
  CDI specialist
  Rady Children’s Hospital of San Diego
  San Diego, California

Nowak has more than five years of experience in healthcare and has been a CDI specialist at Rady 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 2018 CDI Week Committee among other boards and committees.

  Amy Sanderson, MD
  Physician advisor
  Boston Children’s Hospital
  Boston, Massachusetts
  Amy.Sanderson@childrens.harvard.edu

Sanderson is a pediatric intensivist at Boston Children’s Hospital where she has been the physician advisor for the CDI program since its inception in 2014. She also serves as an assistant professor in anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School. Sanderson has presented at the ACDIS conference on multiple occasions and is a contributing author to the book Pediatric CDI: Building Blocks for Success.

  Tina Scarborough, RN, CCM, CCDS
  CDI team lead
  AdventHealth
  Sebring, Florida
  TINA.SCARBOROUGH@AdventHealth.com

A nurse for more than 30 years with background in industrial nursing, emergency room, medical surgical, home care, case management, bed management, and Scarborough helped start the CDI program at AdventHealth more than eight years’ ago and now serves as team lead over three facilities and contributes to several quality improvement committees such as clinical excellence, sepsis committee, and physician/residency orientation. She and her team conducted a successful CDI ER pilot, and which is now an established program.

  Courtney Spangler, BSN, RN, CCDS, CCS
  CDI educator
  Greater Baltimore Medical Center
  Towson, Maryland
  cspangler@gbmc.org

Spangler began her healthcare career in 2005 as a nursing assistant after graduating from Penn State with a bachelor’s degree in biology, loved nursing and earned her associate degree from Harrisburg Area Community College in 2008, transitioning to CDI in 2014, and obtaining her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wyoming that same year. She currently serves as a co-leader for the Central Pennsylvania ACDIS Chapter.

  Mary Elizabeth (M.E.) VanGelder, MREd, BSN, RN, CCDS, RHIT
  CDI educator
  HonorHealth
  Phoenix, Arizona

VanGelder began her CDI career in 2014 at Mayo Clinic Hospital and now, in her current role, provides physician and staff education across all of HonorHealth’s facilities. With 30 years of nursing experience, including five years in case management, VanGelder is a frequent ACDIS speaker and contributor. She is a member of the HIM Advisory Council for Phoenix College, a current co-chair of the Arizona ACDIS chapter, and a previous founding co-chair of the ACDIS CDI Educator Networking Group.

Click here to download the committee scope of work. For information about this committee, contact Committee Coordinators Linnea Archibald (larchibald@acdis.org) and Carolyn Riel (criel@acdis.org).

  Chinwe Anyika, PhD, RN-BC, CDIP, CCS, CCDS, CCDS-O
  Manager of CDI and data operations
  Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
  New York, New York

Anyika became a registered nurse in 2004. Her areas of specialization are in critical care, telemetry, ER float, and medical/surgical. She obtained her medical/surgical board certification shortly after starting her career. When Anyika started her CDI career, she was the lead CDI specialist and one of the pioneers of CDI at the hospital. She later transitioned to a 100% remote CDI position, where she learned about all areas of CDI.

In her current role, Anyika manages 14 CDI specialists. Her role includes, among other things, supervising day-to-day CDI operations/activities, providing CDI training or education to the CDI staff and providers within various services, and performing comprehensive data analytics to show CDI and provider performance metrics/feedback. Anyika is a member of the ACDIS CDI Leadership Council.
 

  Leyna Belcher, DNP-C, MSN, BSN, RN, CCDS, CCDS-O
  Enterprise system CDI educator
  WVU Medicine
  Carroll, Ohio

Belcher is a seasoned clinical professional with over a decade of experience in documentation review including as a CDI review RN, CDI specialist, supervisor, and CDI educator. She is a DNP candidate/MSN/RN/CCDS with strong clinical background of over eight years. Belcher’s clinical strengths include experience as charge nurse and staff nurse on neuroscience and neurosurgery ICU, as well as intermediate care unit including care for spinal surgeries, strokes, seizures, aneurysm repairs/shunts/coils and TBI patients.

Belcher’s CDI strengths include implementing successful projects for increased CC/MCC capture rates, utilizing AHIMA compliant queries to increase SOI/ROM and CMI scores. Data extraction and revenue cycle management, denial reviews, building process and workflow templates for inpatient and outpatient CDI are also strengths of hers. Belcher has completed an effective outpatient program launch working with UR, physician champion advisors, and CDI staff for outpatient conversions to inpatient and capturing HCC’s. Her strengths also include communication for peer-to-peer reviews for providers to use during conversations with insurance companies. Knowledge using both MS-DRG and APR-DRG systems.

Belcher also creates education and orientation plans for providers, nurses, and CDI team. Supervising multiple team members and working with a supervisory team across multiple sites across multiple service lines including HVI/cardiothoracic, oncology, OB/GYN, NICU, trauma, orthopedic, ICU, vascular/nephrology, and elective surgeries is an additional strength of hers.

  Lora Diner, RN, CCDS
  CDI manager
  Centura Health
  Centennial, Colorado

Diner has been a nurse for over 25 years. Her clinical experience was mostly trauma and she served as a charge nurse for many years. Diner started her CDI career in 2012. Her journey has led her through positions working closely with physicians and ultimately the Director of Operations with a national physician group. She decided to return to the world of CDI and has been with Centura Health for over four years.

In her current role, Diner manages a team of 40 associates, including CDI specialists, CDI leads, educators, CDI 2s, and CDI quality liaisons. She obtained her CCDS in 2019 and is in her second term on the ACDIS CDI Leadership Council.

Diner has grown B/B/G triplet children along with four bonus kids and five grandchildren. Her husband and her like to travel, attend sports activities and movies, and enjoy their family who all live in the Denver area.

  Keisha Downes, BSN, RN, CCDS
  CDI manager
  Tufts Medical Center
  Boston, Massachusetts

Downes is the CDI manager at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree from Liberty University and she has 16 years of nursing experience with focuses in trauma, neurosurgery, intensive care (earning the Critical Care Registered Nursing Certification [CCRN]), and interventional radiology. Beginning in 2013, Downes has had the privilege of working in large academic medical centers as a CDI specialist in Virginia, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts. She earned her CCDS certification in 2016. She was the CDI educator for Tufts Medical Center as a consultant prior to relocating to Boston and accepting the leadership role in April 2017. Downes is active with ACDIS, recently serving as co-leader for the Massachusetts local chapter, and participating on the Scholarship Committee and the ACDIS CDI Leadership Council.

  Maryn Griffin, BSN, RN, CCS, CCDS
  CDE Manager of Second Level Reviewers
  Orlando Health
  Orlando, Florida

Griffin is a CDI manager at Orlando Health with thirteen years of combined nursing and CDI experience. Her transition into CDI occurred in 2016 when she was chosen as one of 12 inaugural team members charged with pioneering the CDI program at Orlando Health. Griffin began as a concurrent CDI specialist and later advanced to a second-level reviewer where she conducted audits of concurrent CDI specialist cases and reconciled mismatching DRGs between the CDI and coding departments. In 2019 she was promoted to CDI manager of three Orlando Health hospitals and the second-level reviewer team.

Due to the continued growth of the Orlando Health CDI program, in January of 2021 Griffin became the specialized manager of the second-level reviewer team that supports 9 Orlando Health hospitals inclusive of the CDI Payer Defense team that specialize in thwarting payer denials.

Griffin earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Bethune-Cookman University in 2008 and is currently enrolled in the MHA program at Louisiana State University Shreveport.  Griffin is a member of ACDIS and AHIMA. She holds a CCS and CCDS certification in conjunction with an Alumnus PCCN and CCRN status.

  Brandi Hutcheson, RN, MSN, CCM, CCDS
  Remote CDI specialist
  Community Health Systems
  Franklin, Tennessee

Hutcheson began her nursing career as an LPN. She has more than four years of experience in utilization review and case management. She attended the HMA resource management and physician advisor training in 2011 and 2012. Hutcheson has five years of experience in clinical documentation. She had an article published in the a previous edition of the CDI Journal.

  Jeanne Johnson, MHA/INF, BNS, RN
  System Director of Clinical Documentation
  Premier Health
  Dayton, Ohio

Johnson has 29 years of nursing experience including critical care, cardiology, infusion therapy, and infectious disease. She entered the world of CDI in 2013 as she was tasked to start a new CDI program. That lead to her advancement as the Manager of Integrative Care. Upon completing her Master’s in Informatics and Health Care Administration, she was selected as the Director of Clinical Documentation for Premier Health in Dayton, Ohio.

Johnson’s passions include ongoing learning and collaborating with her team to improve and achieve accurate documentation. Not only does she partner with physicians and advanced care providers daily, she enjoys using evidence-based literature to develop new CDI strategies. She also believes in a work-life balance and has developed new policies to help her team achieve that.

Johnson is the mother to three sons and two dogs. She and her husband have been married for over 20 years and enjoy traveling together. Johnson also serves as a member of the Ohio ACDIS chapter and loves to connect with others in the industry.

  Patricia King-Musser, DNP, BSN, RN, CCDS
  Senior director of CDI
  Geisinger Health System
  Danville, Pennsylvania

King-Musser is the senior director of the CDI program for the Geisinger system. She has been a nurse for over 25 years, starting with a diploma from Geisinger’s School of Nursing. She went on to obtain a BSN from Pennsylvania College of Technology and a DNP from Capella University. King-Musser has experience in various capacities: bedside med/surg nursing, OR, case management, performance innovation, clinical quality & patient safety, and CDI.  She took the very first CCDS credentialing exam, and has maintained her credentials throughout her professional experiences as she knew one day she would return to CDI and to Geisinger.    

  Hiral Patel, RN, BSN, MHI
  CDI specialist
  UT Southwestern Medical Center
  Fort Worth, Texas

Patel started her nursing career as a critical care nurse after graduating from Northern Kentucky University in 2012. She also has a master’s degree in health informatics from Northern Kentucky University, which she obtained in 2015. Patel started her CDI career in April 2019 at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, before joining the CDI team at UT Southwestern Medical Center in 2020. She is an active member of the Texas ACDIS local chapter.

  Brian Simpson, MS, RRT, CCDS, CCDS-O, CDIP, CCS, CCS-P, CRC
  CDI specialist
  Penn Highlands Healthcare
  DuBois, Pennsylvania

Simpson has been a registered respiratory therapist for 28 years, spending a large portion of his career involved in pulmonary and cardiac rehab.  He received his Bachelor of Science in respiratory care from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Science in exercise science.  Simpson transitioned into CDI after experiencing health issues, but has enjoyed every day for the last four and a half years as a CDI specialist.

Simpson is currently a member of ACDIS, AHIMA and AAPC.  Although there is not a local ACDIS chapter in his home in western Pennsylvania, he has recently joined the Central Pennsylvania chapter and is looking forward to attending future meetings.

  Lashondra Tate, MSN, RN, MEDSURG-BC CCDS
  CDI educator
  Birmingham VA Medical Center
  Birmingham, Virginia

Tate is a registered nurse with clinical experience in med surg. She has held leadership positions including nurse preceptor and charge nurse from 2011-2015. She began her CDI career in 2015. Tate expanded her role in 2017 to become a team lead. In her previous position as team lead, she developed program metrics for reporting, monitoring, and distribution. She was also responsible for case reviews to ensure that the severity of illness, risk of mortality, and level of services provided were accurately reflected in the health record. She is currently a CDI educator where her role has expanded to mortality, hospital-acquired condition reviews, outpatient reviews, and providing continuous documentation education to providers.

  Rebecca Truett, RN, MSN, MBA
  CDI specialist
  Novant Health
  Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Truett has 30 years of experience in the healthcare field. Her nursing career has spanned from bedside nursing for surgical, emergency, and critical care departments to nursing director of surgical services. Truett performed the role of director of quality and risk management for nine years, and nursing director for an ambulatory surgery center for five years. Her current role at Novant health includes a service line approach to provider education for the surgical service line at Forsyth Medical Center, an 800-bed acute care facility. She also supports the CDI team as an Epic workflow super user.  

  Anita Gail Weldon, RN, CCDS
 Team lead
  Baptist Health
  Montgomery, Alabama

 Weldon decided to be a nurse when she was fiveyears old and has never changed her mind. She went to nursing school directly after high school and graduated with her ASN at 19 years old. She has worked full-time since 1978 in nursing and has been given multiple opportunities to grow with the same hospital system for the last 20 years. She began in med surg, moved into the outpatient surgery area and then to OR/PACU. In 2007 she was able to move into a quality coordinator position overseeing professional practice evaluations and all things physician quality related. The doctors always told her “but my patients are sicker” so when the CDI department was developed, she jumped at the chance.

Weldon is now the CDI team lead over two facilities in the healthcare system. She is able to educate physicians in what is needed to reflect true illness and risk of mortality. She has developed e-tips that weresent to all physicians by email. Weldon also educates monthly in the hospitalists meetings, and her team is currently working on a process to reach the specialists, as that is still a weak area of their program. “Some days if feels like we are herding cats but I love it,” she says.

Weldon loves to spend time with her husband, children and grandchildren. She is extremely blessed to have both of her parents living and enjoys their company as often as she can. she also loves dogs and birds, and has a few of each.

2021 CDI Week Advisor:

  Kelly Sutton, RN, BSN, MHL, CCDS
  Corporate CDI implementation specialist and educator
  AdventHealth
  Altamonte Springs, Florida

Sutton has 27 years of nursing experience with six years in the CDI profession. Her CDI career started in 2015 as a front line CDI specialist in a suburban 170-plus-bed facility in Sebring, Florida. The transition to CDI was enjoyable as Sutton was able to utilize her clinical knowledge and experience to drive the quality-based reviews in the CDI role. Navigating through a rapidly changing financially-based program as it transitioned to a quality-based program was a challenge which excited her. She achieved her CCDS certification in 2018 and was promoted to a newly created CDI educator role in January 2019 as the CDI program transitioned away from facility-based to a divisional lead program. The educator role allowed Sutton to participate in the creation of the policy and process for the division. Current responsibilities include oversight of the onboarding process for all new employees. Additional responsibilities include creating and implementing education for 40+ employees and multiple physician groups across 11 facilities. She facilitates weekly lunch-and-learn education presentations for the division. Her professional organization memberships include ACDIS, the Florida ACDIS local chapter, and the National Association of Healthcare Revenue Integrity (NAHRI) Leadership Council. Sutton's passions include education and lifelong learning. She jumped at the chance to participate in the success of her organization's three recent emergency department CDI pilot projects. It was an energizing experience to present during the ACDIS Virtual Education Curtain Call in 2020.

Elected to the board in 2021; serving through April 2024

For questions about the committee, contact ACDIS Editorial Director and Committee Coordinator Melissa Varnavas (mvarnavas@acdis.org).

  Haaris Ali, MD, CDIP 
  Director of CDI services
  Prospect Holdings at the Nix Health Hospital
  San Antonio, Texas

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.

  Sharme Brodie, RN, CCDS
  CDI education specialist 
  HCPro/ACDIS
  Middleton, Massachusetts

Brodie is a CDI education specialist for HCPro, a Simplify Compliance brand, in Middleton, Massachusetts. Brodie serves as a full-time instructor for CDI Boot Camps and a subject matter expert for ACDIS. She has more than 35 years’ experience in the healthcare industry, including multiple areas of nursing, serving in a variety of roles at both large academic and small community hospitals. Prior to joining HCPro, Brodie worked as a consultant providing program audits, implementation advice, and continuing education for CDI departments, including physician education She has been responsible for the successful implementation and oversight of a CDI department and the revitalization of a CDI department at a small community hospital. Sharme is a frequent contributor of articles for ACDIS’ CDI Journal and CDI Strategies. She has been a speaker at the national ACDIS conference and is a frequent guest host on the ACDIS Podcast.

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

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.
 

  Lynette Byerly, RN, CCDS, CCS
  Clinical documentation specialist auditor/trainer
  University of Colorado Health
  Aurora, Colorado

Byerly has been a nurse for 15 years, starting her career in ortho/neuro, then transferred in the emergency department. While in the ED, she took on the role of trauma nurse coordinator for six years. In 2014, Byerly had the opportunity to join the CDI team part-time and fell in love with it. She has worked full time as a CDI specialist for six years now. Byerly joined ACDIS in 2018 and obtained her CCDS shortly after. She ais currently an auditor/trainer of CDI specialists. Byerly joined the ACDIS Regulatory Committee in August of 2020, and in April 2021 obtained her CCS. 

Byerly lives in a small rural community with her husband of 29 years. They have two grown boys and one wonderful grandbaby, as well as four mules for riding and packing, three miniature horses, and one miniature donkey.   

  Lisa Daughtry, RHIA, CCS, CDIP
  CDI query writer
  ACCUITY

                 Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Area

Daughtry is currently a CDI query writer for ACCUITY and was a prior coding educator. She has served on the AHA Editorial Advisory Board of Coding Clinic in Chicago for a two-year term, the AHIMA Clinical Coding Program committee for a three-year term serving as Chair this past year, and her local NCHIMA Triangle Region Chapter as Treasurer instrumental in establishing the board to 501(c) (6) non-profit status.

Passionate with inpatient coding, CDI, and love for ICD-CM-PCS, her interests include continued growth in CDI auditing and qualitative queries, ICD-CM coding expansion, DRG auditing, coding education, and appeals and auditing trends.

Raised in eastern North Carolina, Daughtry lives in Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina with her husband. She is a graduate of the College of Charleston in South Carolina with a Bachelor of Arts in French and Edgecombe Community College in Tarboro, North Carolina with an Associate of Applied Science in Health Information Technology. 

  Lori Drodge, RHIT, CCS
  DRG Coordinator and CDI liaison
  Acute care hospital
  Maine

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

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.
 

  Cheryl Ericson, RN, MS, CCDS, CDIP
  Clinical program manager
  Iodine Software
  Charleston, South Carolina

Ericson’s body of work includes expertise in the mid revenue cycle with a focus on CDI and utilization review as well as quality. She is recognized as a CDI subject matter expert for her body of work which includes many speaking engagements and publications for a variety of industry associations. She has helped establish industry guidance through contributions to white papers, books, conference presentations and practice briefs for both ACDIS and the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA). Ericson is a current member of the ACDIS CCDS Certification Subcommittee of the Certification Committee. She is also a member of the AHIMA CDI Practice Council. She is a past member of the ACDIS Advisory Board. 
 

  Julian Everett, BSN, RN, CCDS, CDIP
  CDI specialist
  Orlando Health Hospital
  Orlando, Florida

Everett is currently a CDI specialist at Orlando Health Hospital and holds a CDIP and CCDS certification. Over the last five years, she has aided in the development and implementation of the pediatric documentation department. Under her guidance she has improved documentation for post-operative respiratory, neonatal pulmonary insufficiency, and shock, sepsis, and pediatric heart failure. In 2019, Everett assumed the role of corporate educator for CDI. Her current job role includes developing and implementing education for physicians and CDI specialists across ten campuses. Everett has transitioned into regional manager for her organization.

With a clinical background in adult medical-surgical, high-risk obstetric, pediatrics, and neonatal intensive care, she was able to help her department standardize reviews with in the pediatric and obstetric departments. In her current position, she assisted in standardization in her department query templates, developed poster presentation, and collaborated with key stake holders to bring further awareness of CDI. In addition, she monitors pediatric and sepsis mortality reviews. As a compliance ambassador, Everett monitors for query compliance according to Orlando Health policy.

Everett has written for both ACDIS and JustCoding on a variety of topics including coding, PEPPER, malnutrition, health disparities, the effect of pediatric mortality reviews, pediatric surviving sepsis, and more.

Everett earned a BSN from Florida A&M University and has been a member of ACDIS and American Heath Information Management Association since 2017.
 

  Margaret Foley, PhD, CCS, RHIA
  Associate professor, HIM
  Temple University
  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 

Dr. Foley has more than 30 years of experience in various aspects of health information management and education. She has held the position of director of HIM for a large acute care teaching hospital and a psychiatric facility and has also served as a consultant for inpatient reimbursement and coding strategies. Her fulltime position is an associate professor for Temple University’s Health Information Management Program, and she also serves as a coding educational consultant for National Health Resources (NHR) on a part-time basis. Dr. Foley is truly Temple-made, having earned her B.S. in Health Records Administration in 1984, an MBA in Health Administration in 1994, and a PhD in Public Health in 2005, all from Temple University. She is also an AHIMA ICD-10-CM/PCS Approved Trainer. She has also held various leadership positions in health information professional organizations at the national, state and local levels. In addition to serving on the ACDIS Regulatory Committee, she recently served on the ACDIS Conference Committee and the AHIMA Clinical Terminology and Classification Practice Council.  

  Leslie Forrester, RHIA, CDIP, CCS
  Operations SME
  Accuity
  Mount Laurel, New Jersey

Forrester is a health information management professional with over 10 years of experience in coding and CDI. She is an active member of ACDIS and AHIMA, and is currently employed with Accuity Healthcare as the operations subject matter expert where she serves as the operations resource for potential and current clients. Forrester is also employed part-time as an adjunct instructor with Rasmussen University in the Health Science department and is pursuing her master’s degree in health informatics and HIM at The University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

  Wendy Haney, RN, MSN, BSN, CCDS
  Quality and education specialist for CDI
  Mayo Clinic Enterprise
  Montgomery, Minnesota

Haney has been an RN for more than 28 years with a wide variety of experience including med/surg, peds, OB, ED, and non-interventional radiology. She started in CDI nine years ago without a clue as to what the job entailed before falling in love with the profession.

In CDI, Haney has acted as a mentor and orientation leader for new CDI. She became a lead CDI specialist, then quickly transitioned to the newly developed quality and education reviewer role for Mayo Clinic Rochester. In this role, Haney helped develop the foundations for their current quality review process which has transitioned to an enterprise-wide process. She introduced the Florida (Jacksonville) Mayo CDI department to the quality review process and now conducts quality/query reviews for the Mayo Clinic Enterprise in the areas of neurology, neuro-surgery, orthopedics, and orthopedic trauma.

Haney is a member of ACDIS, AHIMA, and the Minnesota chapters of ACDIS and AHIMA.

  A.J. Hegg, MD
  Intensivist and emergency physician
  Essentia Health
  Duluth, Minnesota

Hegg is an intensivist and emergency physician at Essentia Health in Duluth, Minnesota. Hegg graduated medical school from University of Minnesota in 2006, and in 2012 he completed a combined residency/fellowship in emergency medicine, internal medicine, and critical care medicine at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. He is board certified in all three specialties. Hegg is the Sepsis Medical Director, CDI Medical Director, and a UM Physician advisor for Essentia. 

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

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.
 

  Rabia Jalal, MBBS, CCS, CDIP, CCDS, RHIA
  Physician currently working as a CDI specialist
  Optum360, Marian Regional Medical Center
  Santa Maria, California

While she reviews all medical specialties, her expertise is neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), pediatrics and obstetrics/gynecology (OB/GYN). She has several years of experience in clinical medicine, public health, clinical research, managed healthcare, and coder auditing. She has been in CDI for the past five years. She has presented at the 11^th Annual ACDIS Conference in 2018 and as an AHIMA webinar presenter. Additionally, she has presented a poster at the 12^th Annual ACDIS Conference in 2019. Jalal was also selected to present at the 13^th Annual ACDIS Conference as a speaker, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference was cancelled. She is also on the California ACDIS local chapter newsletter committee and has recently joined the ACDIS Diversity and Inclusion Task Force. She has also written for the ACDIS Blog, several articles for the popular medical blog KevinMD.com discussing CDI, her experience of dealing with a medical condition and fear during the COVID-19 pandemic, and highlighting why racism is a public health crisis. In her free time, she likes to travel, paint, and do photography. She is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Health Information Management degree and is expected to graduate in 2021.
 

  Teresa Krepps, RHIT, CCS, CCDS
  Educator, clinical documentation excellence
  Johns Hopkins Health System
  Baltimore, Maryland

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.

  Angelica Naylor, MBA, BSN, RN, CCDS, CCS
  Senior Healthcare Performance Advisor
  3M Health Information Systems
  Salt Lake City, Utah

Naylor is a senior healthcare performance advisor with 3M Health Information Systems. Naylor has six years of CDI experience including direct CDI management of a Midwest hospital and manager in CDI consulting services. Her background includes critical care nursing in the trauma/surgical/neurological ICU, as well as in utilization review, case management, and quality/risk management.

Naylor has been a speaker at the 2021 National ACDIS Conference, guest speaker on The ACDIS Podcast, and guest columnist in the CDI Journal. She is a former Kansas City ACDIS Chapter Leader and currently serves on the ACDIS Chapter Advisory Board, ACDIS Regulatory Committee, and chair of the ACDIS Diversity & Inclusion Task Force.

  Kay Piper, RHIA, CDIP, CCS
  Inpatient coding educator
  SSM Health System
  St. Louis, Missouri

Piper has a passion for helping others improve their coding knowledge and skills. In her current role, she provides education for coders for 17 hospitals in four states. Piper is committed to others through volunteerism. She has served as the Missouri Health Information Management Association (MoHIMA) coding roundtable coordinator, MoHIMA delegate, the American Hospital Association’s Coding Clinic Editorial Advisory Board member, and AHIMA Rapid Designs team member, a volunteer group creating ICD-10 educational materials. Additionally, Piper edited AHIMA’s 2014 CCA Exam Preparation Workbook, Fourth Edition. She has been honored to receive the 2014 MoHIMA Distinguished Service Award and the 2014 and 2015 AHIMA Coding Roundtable Achievement in Coding Excellence Award.
 

  Howard Rodenberg, MD, MPH, CCDS
  Physician advisor for CDI 
  Baptist Health
  Jacksonville, Florida

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.
 

  Susan Wallace, MEd, RHIA, CCS, CDIP, CCDS, FAHIMA
  Vice president of inpatient services
  Administrative Consultant Service, LLC
  Shawnee, Oklahoma

Wallace provides consultation in CDI, with emphasis on education, resource development and data analysis. She also provides consultation and education for MS-DRG and APR-DRG management, health information department management, and ICD-10 coding. She has more than 40 years of experience, working in the hospital setting, as a college instructor, and as a consultant. Wallace is a member of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the Arkansas HIMA (ArHIMA), and ACDIS.

Objectives:

1. Inspire CDI professionals of all races, nationalities, gender identities, sexual orientations, abilities, and ethnicities to thrive within the profession
2. Improve recruitment and retention in the CDI industry and promote an even playing field for all qualified professionals
3. Educate the CDI community about behaviors and actions that promote inclusivity
4. Provide support and bring awareness to biases and discrimination within CDI and the broader healthcare community
5. Recognize organizations that promote diversity and inclusion and implement actionable policies to ensure follow-through

Click here to watch a video interview with three members of the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force.

Click here to download the committee scope of work. For questions about this committee, contact ACDIS Editor Carolyn Riel (criel@acdis.org).

  Daizy Chan-Kumpa, MSN, RN
  Business Service Administrative Nurse-CDI
  VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System
  Reno, Nevada 

Bio coming soon...
 

  Ella Elizee, MSN, RN, CCDS
  CDI Educator
  Tampa General Hospital
  Tampa, Florida

Elizee is currently a CDI educator in Tampa Florida. She has several years of nursing experience prior to becoming involved CDI in the areas of med-surg, oncology, and observation. During this time acquiring nursing experience, she served as a clinical leader, preceptor, and champion of several nursing pilot initiatives throughout the hospital. Since joining the CDI department, she has served in the role of preceptor and is currently the chairperson of her department’s workgroup where policy development, physician/provider education, and coder collaboration is the main focus to improve workflow and quality. In 2021, she was awarded Nurse of the Year for her department. Outside of the office, she enjoys gardening, traveling, and cooking.

  Okemena Ewoteria, BSN, MA, CCS, CDIP, CCDS
  Director of CDI
  Montefiore Medical Center
  New York, New York

Ewoterai is a director in clinical documentation in New York, New York. She has over 11 years of CDI experience and over 18 years of nursing experience. As part of her CDI experience, she has educated nurses and providers on clinical documentation techniques and workflows. A key component of her practice is the ability to know when to query and key elements to support a query. Ewoterai also has managed and hired diverse staff including foreign medical graduates, coders, physician assistants, and registered nurses of various backgrounds. 

  Rabia Jalal, MBBS, CCS, CDIP, CCDS, RHIA
  CDI Specialist/Senior Clinical Analyst
  Optum360, Marian Regional Medical Center
  Santa Maria, California

Jalal is a physician currently working as a CDI specialist with Optum360 at Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria, California. While she reviews all medical specialties as a CDI, her expertise is NICU, pediatrics and OB/GYN. She has several years of experience in clinical medicine, public health, clinical research, managed healthcare, coder auditing. She has been a CDI specialist for the past five years. She presented at the 11^th Annual ACDIS Conference in 2018 and served as an AHIMA webinar presenter. She has presented a poster at the 12^th Annual ACDIS Conference in May 2019. She was also selected to present at the 13^th Annual ACDIS Conference as a speaker, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference was cancelled. Rabia is also on the California chapter ACDIS newsletter committee, and has recently joined the ACDIS Regulatory Committee. In addition, she has written several articles for the popular medical blog KevinMD.com discussing Clinical Documentation Improvement, her experience of dealing with a medical condition and fear during the COVID-19 pandemic, and highlighting why racism is a public health crisis.  In her free time, she likes to travel, paint and do photography. She is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Health Information Management degree and is expected to graduate in 2021.

  Maria Mann, RN, BSN, MSHL, CCDS, CCS, CDIP, CRC, CSM
  Senior manager of clinical content
 ChartWise, an Iodine company
  Wakefield, Rhode Island

Mann has been a registered nurse for 29 years. She received her BSN from Hunter- Bellevue School of Nursing in New York City and has always been attracted to fast paced, complex environments. She moved from New York City to Atlanta, Georgia in 2002, one year after volunteering at Ground Zero on 9/11/2001. She spent 15 years in the clinical environment working as a staff nurse, clinical leader, and nurse educator. She specialized in critical care areas such as ER, SICU, neuro ICU, trauma, organ procurement, and cath lab.

Her first position outside of the fast-paced clinical environment was in CDI. Mann has been working in CDI for 14 years, starting as a CDI specialist and transitioning to the role of CDI manager at Gwinnett Medical Center (now Northside Gwinnett) in Lawrenceville, Georgia. While at GMC, Mann and her team implemented and utilized the ChartWise software for three years prior to her joining the ChartWise team full-time in 2015. She currently serves as the senior manager of clinical content at ChartWise- an Iodine Company. Her role focuses on product design, product management, and clinical content development. She also serves as the CDI and coding subject matter expert and leads ChartWise’s end-user training.

  Chinedum Mogbo, MBBS, MsHIM, RHIA, CDIP, CCDS, CCS
  Manager, CDI
  Tenet Healthcare
  Dallas, Texas

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.
 

  Buddy Morgan, BSN, RN
  CDI program manager
  Providence St. Joseph Health
  Renton, Washington

Morgan has formally worked in healthcare for almost 20 years starting as a CNA in the early 2000s. After graduating nursing school, he jumped feet-first into a charge nurse role on a progressive care unit, eventually landing in the ICU. His passion as a bedside nurse includes advocating for equality of care and inclusivity for fellow members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

CDI has opened a whole new world of nursing for Morgan and where he truly found his home as a nurse. Several years into his CDI career, I Morgan was selected to lead a 12-person team as a CDI supervisor. In his current role as CDI program manager, he oversees programs at four facilities and has more than 20 caregivers under his wings. Morgan’s goals are to support caregivers, encourage diversity and inclusivity, and lead his team to success.

Outside of the office, Morgan is an avid runner and outdoor/fitness enthusiast. He loves riding his street motorcycle and exploring the trails of the local mountains on his off-road motorcycle. He also loves fishing, hiking, snowshoeing, and anything that gets him outdoors and moving! He is a proud dog dad of an Italian greyhound named Luca.

  Angelica Naylor, MBA, BSN, RN, CCDS, CCS
  Senior Healthcare Performance Advisor
  3M Health Information Systems
  Salt Lake City, Utah

Naylor is a senior healthcare performance advisor with 3M Health Information Systems. Naylor has six years of CDI experience including direct CDI management of a Midwest hospital and manager in CDI consulting services. Her background includes critical care nursing in the trauma/surgical/neurological ICU, as well as in utilization review, case management, and quality/risk management.

Naylor has been a speaker at the 2021 National ACDIS Conference, guest speaker on The ACDIS Podcast, and guest columnist in the CDI Journal. She is a former Kansas City ACDIS Chapter Leader and currently serves on the ACDIS Chapter Advisory Board, ACDIS Regulatory Committee, and chair of the ACDIS Diversity & Inclusion Task Force.

  Phyllis Lotus Stevenson, MSN, RN, CCDS
  Clinical informatics specialist – provider support
  UnityPoint Health-Allen Hospital
                        Waterloo, Iowa

Stevenson moved to Waterloo, Iowa to pursue her nursing degree. She obtained a Nursing Associate degree in May of 1999 and began working in the acute hospital setting. Her focus was oncology and gastroenterology, and she has also worked as a home health nurse with a focus on pediatric and wound population. In 2001, she joined a local clinic to serve as the RN for two family practice providers, and she subsequently expanded her responsibilities to pediatrics and clinic triage.

In 2005, she decided to move back into the acute care setting as a case manager. In this department, she partnered with physicians and nurses to coordinate patients’ needs and after discharge care. Another case management responsibility included performing mock RAC audits for the hospital, as well as insurance reviews using multiple software programs. In 2012 she was hired into a CDI role and began to review charts on a concurrent basis, including working beside with physicians, NPs, and PAs to educate and guide  them to appropriate documentation.

In 2015, Stevenson explored and accepted a challenging role as a provider specific clinical informatics specialist. She currently trains practitioners in the Epic Electronic Medical Record (EMR) including Epic updates for, as well as providing device management, report requests, history and physical consultation audits, including working with the CDI group to assist physicians when help is needed to answer queries.

  Monica Tyiska, MBA-PM, RHIA, CCS, CPC, CPMA, CHA, OHCC, CCP-P
  Director of HIM & CDI
  St. John's Episcopol Hospital
  Far Rockaway, New York

Tyiska has 15 years of experience as a coding educator. She is a graduate of an HBCU, Coppin State University with an undergrade degree in interdisciplinary studies with core areas in health information management and education. She started her career in coding education, auditing outpatient provider documentation, and providing feedback and training, and in 2013, she began working on in the inpatient side of the house.

Tyiska has an excitement for all things related to education. She has had the opportunity to teach medical insurance and coding at the community college level. Enjoying being a student as well, in addition to coding certifications of RHIA, CCS and CPC she has also earned, Certified Professional Medical Auditor, Certified Healthcare Auditor, Officer of Healthcare Compliance, Certified Compliance Professional- Physician. Being well rounded in coding, auditing and compliance makes her an excellent resource for resolving issues of coding and documentation in the medical record.

Tyiska has also earned an MBA with a specialization in project management from the American InterContinental University. Her current project is managing coding and CDI, two sides to the same coin. She is also pursuing additional certifications and has recently completed the ACDIS Clinical Documentation Integrity Boot Camp. She enjoys being a grandma to her two grandsons and has also become a vegan this year.
 

  Ami Vyas, MBBS, MPH, CCS, CDIP, CCDS, CRCR, CSMC, CSBI, CSAF
  CDI service area director 
  Optum360
  Greater Sacramento & North State Market, California

 Vyas is a physician currently working as a CDI director with Optum360 for Greater Sacramento and North State Market, California. She has over seven years of CDI experience. Before her current role, she worked as a CDI manager and led inpatient and emergency department CDI programs in various hospitals in Southern California and San Franciso. Her areas of expertise are physician engagement, implementing and developing the CDI program, provider education, team building, data analysis, quality, and revenue integrity. Vyas is passionate about creating CDI materials for various service lines such as trauma, cardiology, NICU, psych, and burns, in addition to hospital medicine. She currently leads a diverse CDI team, including FMGs and RNs of various backgrounds. She has several years of experience in clinical medicine, public health, clinical research, revenue cycle, healthcare management, and teaching. In her free time, she likes to teach yoga, meditation, and holistic nutrition. She enjoys reading, traveling, painting, and listening to music.