Click here to download the committee scope of work. For questions about the Advisory Board, contact ACDIS Interim Director Laurie Prescott (lprescott@acdis.org) and Programming Director Rebecca Hendren (rhendren@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 Linnea Archibald (larchibald@acdis.org).

Committee Members: Leola Burke from North Carolina, Amy Bush from the pediatric ACDIS networking group (APDIS), Angelica Cage from Texas, Denise Deter from Arizona, Ella Elizee from Florida, Carol McNutt from Maryland, Keri Miller from Michigan, Janell Murray from Indiana, Paula Rector from Georgia, Rani Stoddard from California, and Ashley Vahey from Pennsylvania. 

  Leola Burke, MHSA, CCS                                         
  Independent HIM/CDI/mid-revenue cycle consultant
  Morrisville, 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.
 

  Amy Bush, BS, RN, MJ, CCDS, CCS
  CDI specialist III
  Cooper University Health System
  Woolwich Township, New Jersey 

Bush is currently serving as an inpatient CDIS III at Cooper University Hospital, a level I trauma center. She joined the Cooper CDI team with the goal of establishing the CDI program in the Women’s and Children’s Institute, which covers maternity, general pediatrics, PICU, and NICU. This new endeavor followed a 20-year career at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia where she held numerous positions in CDI, PICU case management, bed management nurse coordinator- patient flow, and clinical coordinator cardiac center scheduling and precertification. Bush has also held positions as a nurse advocate, regulatory affairs associate and compliance officer, director of admissions and case management, and clinical nursing in the PICU at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She obtained her B.S. in nursing at the Pennsylvania State University and a master of jurisprudence in health law at Widener University School of Law. She has presented in various venues, served as a guest lecturer at two universities, and was honored to be the featured speaker at nursing grand rounds. Bush is currently serving her third year in a co-leadership role in the ACDIS pediatric networking group (APDIS).
 

  Angelica Cage, MBA, BSN, RN, CCDS, CCS, CDIP
  System retrospect CDI manager
  AdventHealth
  Altamonte Springs, Florida

Cage has eight years of CDI experience including acute care hospital and system CDI manager, senior consultant advisor, and manager in CDI consulting services. Her background includes critical care nursing in the trauma/surgical/neuro ICU, burn ICU, and PACU, as well as in utilization review, case management, and quality/risk management. With a passion for CDI advancement, ethics, and quality improvement, Cage has brought success to CDI programs by integrating a more collaborative workflow and relationship between CDI and HIM, establishing advanced CDI training, implementing quality-focused objectives, revising physician education, participating in appeals and denials management, and serving as subject matter expert to hospitalist readmissions reduction council. Cage has been a speaker at the 2021 and 2022 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 Committee, ACDIS Regulatory Committee, and chair of the ACDIS Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She is also a member of the Texas ACDIS chapter.
 

  Ella Elizee, APRN, MSN, CCDS
  Population health manager
  USF Tampa General
  Tampa, Florida

Elizee is currently the population health manager at the USF Tampa General physician organization in Florida. She is a former CDI educator and has a notable presence in the CDI field. She has contributed to the CDI Journal and actively participates on the Chapter Advisory Committee and ACDIS Leadership Council, and has been a member of the ACDIS Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She has spoken at the state chapter meetings and was a speaker at the 2023 ACDIS national conference. Elizee has also been a guest and has shared her insights on the ACDIS Podcast. Elizee's dedication extends to her role as vice president of the Florida ACDIS chapter, showcasing her commitment to professional development.
 

Carol McNutt, RN, CDIP
CDI manager
Lifebridge Health
Owings Mills, Maryland 

Bio coming soon...
 

  Keri Miller, RN, BSN, CCDS, CCS
  CDI manager of quality and education
  University of Miami 
  Miami, Florida

Miller is currently the CDI manager of quality and education at the University of Miami Health System. She has seven years of experience working in the CDI field with experience in consulting and CDI quality. Her current role focuses on team education on compliance, DRG optimization, and quality measures capture. Her passions include leading the Michigan chapter of ACDIS and providing educational opportunities for CDI professionals across the industry.
 

  Janell Murray, BSN, RN, CCDS
  CDI educator
  Banner Health
  Phoenix, Arizona

Murray is a CDI educator at Banner Health in Phoenix, Arizona. She has more than 14 years of experience in nursing with more than nine in CDI. She recently joined Banner Health as the CDI educator which covers all the Banner Health hospitals. Prior to her current role, she worked as a CDI specialist for the Brundage Group and Parkview Health Systems. Her nursing background includes telemetry and the ICU/CCU, serving as a nursing team lead, preceptor, and department educator. As a CDI professional, she has served as a committee member, working in critical access hospitals to level 1 trauma/teaching facilities. She assisted with onboarding and led the continued education updates for her team. She has been a member of the Indiana chapter of ACDIS, served as the chapter's social media manager from 2020-2022, and then transitioned to the chapter president for the 2023-2025 term. She also recently joined the ACDIS Chapter Advisory Committee.
 

  Paula Rector, RHIT, CCDS, CDIP
  CDI specialist
  Grady Health
  Newman, Georgia

Rector has more than 37 years of hospital/healthcare experience, and more than 15 years of experience in CDI development, implementation, consulting, and staff. Her experience encompasses administrative director/management of the revenue cycle, including HIM, coding, patient accounts, patient access, medical staff operations and credentialing, centralized scheduling, and risk management. She has also served as project manager for denials review teams and A/R reduction teams. Rector has worked in a variety of healthcare settings from large academic medical centers to small community hospitals in many states of the United States. She has served in several HIM and ACDIS state chapter positions and Iowa state healthcare projects. Rector has served as secretary of the Georgia chapter of ACDIS since 2020.
 

  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 nine years. She assists a six-person team consisting of nurses 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, in the past serving as its secretary and currently as the California 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 several hold in-person annual conferences. She joined the Chapter Advisory Committee 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.
 

Ashley Vahey, BSN, RN, CCDS
Interim CDI manager
Penn State Health
Hershey, Pennsylvania

Bio coming soon...

Click here to download the committee scope of work. For questions about this committee, contact ACDIS Director of Programming Rebecca Hendren (rhendren@acdis.org).

CCDS Subcommittee:

Marie Bourque-Namer

Bio coming soon...

  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.

Mary Carol Brouwer

Bio coming soon...

Cheryl Ericson

Bio coming soon...

Patricia Henry

Bio coming soon...

  Dorene Hughes, MSN, BSN, RN, CCDS, CDIP
  Clinical documentation director
  Carolina Pines Regional Medical Center
  Hartsville, South Carolina

Hughes has been involved in CDI for over 14 years, with seven years of that experience as a CDI director. Prior to CDI, she has 12 years of experience as a well-baby and NICU nurse and six years experience as a nurse in a nursing home. She is currently a member of ACDIS, the Tennessee ACDIS local chapter, AHIMA, and is the past tresurer for the South Carolina ACDIS local chapter. Hughes is the lead chair for the Darlington County Disabilities and Special Needs Board, and is alos involved in the Hartsville Evening Lions Club and the ToastMasters Club in Hartsville. Prior to nursing, Hughes taught kindergarten and first grade. She married her high school sweetheart in 2020 and together they have six children, three dogs, and three cats.

  Fran Jurcak, MSN, RN, CCDS, CCDS-O
  Chief clinical strategist
  Iodine Software
  Austin, Texas

Jurcak is an accomplished senior executive with over 30 years of success in healthcare. She is currently the chief clinical strategist at Iodine Software where she has focused her attention on employing innovative artificial intelligence machine learning model technology to support documentation accuracy in all records. Jurcak is focused on creating efficient workflows, preventing duplication of effort, and supporting professional communication between the clinical and coding teams. She has worked side-by-side with CDI specialists and coding staff, CDI leaders, and corporate executives to develop workflows and processes that support positive outcomes for healthcare organizations. She received the 2017 ACDIS award for Professional Achievement, served two elected terms on the ACDIS Advisory Board and currently sits on the certification boards for both inpatient and outpatient CDI as well as the NAHRI Advisory Board. 

Roshan Shetty

Bio coming soon...

  Susanne Warford, RN, MBA, CCDS
  HIM data analytics manager 
  Baptist Health
  Kentucky

Warford's experience includes emergency department, neurosurgical ICU, transplant, case management, and compliance with the last nine years in CDI/HIM. During those nine years, she served as a facility CDI specialist, CDI auditor/educator and regional CDI manager, where she helped to systemize and standardize processes for seven facilities spread throughout Kentucky and Southern Indiana. Prior to her current role, she started the CDI appeals program, which has since developed into its own department. Susanne currently serves as the Vice-President for the ACDIS Kentucky/Southern Indiana Chapter. She is a member of the 2021 – 2022 ACDIS CDI Leadership Council and has served on the CCDS Exam Committee since 2019.

  Gail Weldon, RN, CCDS
  CDI team lead
  Baptist Medical Center East and Prattville Baptist Hospital
  Montgomery and Prattville, Alabama

Weldon has worked full time as an RN since 1978 and has been with the same great healthcare system for the last 22 years. In 2007, she became a quality coordinator overseeing professional practice evaluations and all things physician related. When the CDI department was formed, she transitioned to CDI, which Weldon believes is the best career move she has ever made. Weldon loves CDI and she goes to work with excitement every day. Weldon is a CDI team lead for two of the system's three facilities. In her off time, Weldone loves to experience life with her husband, children and grandchildren. She feels extremely blessed to have both of her parents living and enjoys their company as often as she can. Weldon also loves dogs and birds, and has a few of each.

Irina Zusman

Bio coming soon...

CCDS-O Subcommittee:

  Tracy Boldt, RN, BSN, CCDS, CDIP, CCDS-O
  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, BSN, MHA, RN, CCS, CCDS, ACM-RN, CCDS-O
  Director of clinical documentation excellence (CDE)
  Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist (AHWFB)
  Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Hicks has more than 22 years of experience in CDI and over 37 years of nursing experience. As an original staff member when the CDI program at AHWFB began in 1999, she participated in building and expanding the program by educating staff and faculty, providing leadership, promoting departmental goals, and coordinating department operations. 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 AHWFB for her entire career, with 15 years of service as a staff nurse in the hospital's intermediate care unit and nine years as manager of care coordination. She is a member AHIMA and ACDIS where she is a frequent contributor, serving on the ACDIS Advisory Board twice, currently sitting on the CCDS-O Certification Board, currently serving as the social media coordinator for NC-ACDIS, and she was awarded the CDI Professional of the Year Award at the 2019 ACDIS Conference.

  Fran Jurcak, MSN, RN, CCDS, CCDS-O
  Chief clinical strategist
  Iodine Software
  Austin, Texas

Jurcak is an accomplished senior executive with over 30 years of success in healthcare. She is currently the chief clinical strategist at Iodine Software where she has focused her attention on employing innovative artificial intelligence machine learning model technology to support documentation accuracy in all records. Jurcak is focused on creating efficient workflows, preventing duplication of effort, and supporting professional communication between the clinical and coding teams. She has worked side-by-side with CDI specialists and coding staff, CDI leaders, and corporate executives to develop workflows and processes that support positive outcomes for healthcare organizations. She received the 2017 ACDIS award for Professional Achievement, served two elected terms on the ACDIS Advisory Board and currently sits on the certification boards for both inpatient and outpatient CDI as well as the NAHRI Advisory Board.

  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
  Interim ACDIS director
  HCPro
  Middleton, Massachusetts

Prescott is the interim director and 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, DNP, RN, CCDS, CCDS-O, CRC                                                                   
  Vice president, value-based CDI
  Norwood
  Austin, Texas

Vaughn has over 11 years of CDI experience in both inpatient and outpatient settings and 25 years of nursing experience in hematology/oncology acute care, nephrology, obstetrics/gynecology, and primary care. In 2015 she led one of the nation’s first and outpatient CDI programs focused on value-based care for population health. Vaughn has spoken at multiple conferences, authored articles, received ACDIS’s National Professional Achievement Award, and helped write both the original study guide and the initial CCDS-O certification exam. Vaughn has held certifications in oncology, chemo and biotherapy, AHIMA approved ICD-10 CM/PCS trainer, and most recently completed her Doctor of Nursing at Duke University with research focusing on CDI nurse-led preventative care initiatives.

  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's scope of work. For questions about the committee, contact ACDIS Associate Editor Joshua Raposa (jraposa@acdis.org). 
 

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

Anyika is the manager of CDI and data operations at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. She has 18 years of nursing experience, and 14 years of CDI and inpatient coding experience. In her current position, she oversees other CDI specialists, supervises daily CDI operations and workflow, trains CDI specialists and providers, and utilizes data analytics and CDI informatics to drive provider performance improvement. She earned her master’s and doctorate degrees in biomedical informatics and holds professional certificates in VBA programming, data analytics, and data visualization with tableau.
 

  Laurie Baker, MSN, RN, CCDS
  Clinical documentation specialist
  Memorial Hospital and Health Care Center
  Jasper, Indiana

Baker is a clinical documentation specialist at Memorial Hospital and Health Care Center in Jasper, Indiana. She has 31 years of nursing experience, including in the medical/surgical unit. She has 11 years of experience in case management/utilization review and six years of experience as a CDI specialist. She earned her CCDS credential in 2020 and currently does CDI reviews for traditional and managed Medicare and Medicaid patients. Baker was a 2022 recipient of an ACDIS CDI Scholarship award. 
 

  Melissa Crigger, RN-BSN, MHA, CCDS
  Clinical documentation specialist
  Carilion Clinic
  Roanoke, Virginia

Crigger is a clinical documentation specialist at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, Virginia. She is a registered nurse with more than 29 years of nursing experience. She has five years of CDI experience with her areas of expertise in vascular surgery, neuro trauma ICU and PCU, and oncology. Crigger has also served as an infection preventionist and was the surgical site infection content expert as well as conducted quality improvement projects for HAC reduction. She also has experience in case management, utilization management, and nursing education where she served as an assistant professor of nursing at Jefferson College of Health Sciences in Roanoke. She has a master’s degree in science with an emphasis in healthcare administration and has experience in outpatient practice management as well. While Melissa loves educating physicians and clinical documentation, she considers being mother to her 10-year-old son her greatest accomplishment.   
 

  Alicia Gordon, RN, BSN, CCDS, CDIP, CCS
  Director of CDI and education
  Vanderbilt University
  Nashville, Tennessee 

Gordon is the director of CDI and education at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. She 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. Prior to her current role, Gordon worked as a CDI manager of operations for HCA Intensive Care Consortium, a corporate CDI director for two healthcare systems, and as the manager of CDI at MazarsUSA. 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.
 

  Elizabeth Harvey, RN, BC, MS, CMCN, CPHQ, CCDS
  Level 3 CDI specialist
  West Virginia University Medicine
  Morgantown, West Virginia

Harvey is a level 3 CDI specialist at West Virginia University Medicine in Morgantown. She is a registered nurse with more than 30 years of nursing experience, specializing in CDI since 2007. Harvey has her master’s in community health education and holds education, clinical assessment, and process improvement dear to her heart. Recently, she participated in a process improvement project with sepsis as a level 3 project. At present, Harvey has a goal to form a state ACDIS chapter. She has held the CCDS certification since 2013. She has previously served as president of the West Virginia State Health Care Quality Association and now serves as the treasurer. Harvey is a progressive thinker and is always giving it her all to make the world a better place.
 

  Crystal Incorvaia, RN, CCDS, CRCR
  Director, CDI, revenue cycle
  Ensemble Health Partners
  Toledo, Ohio

Incorvaia is a director of CDI for Ensemble Health Partners, based in Toledo, Ohio. In her current role, she oversees several facilities and CDI teams. She began CDI career in 2012 and has previous clinical experience at a level 1 trauma center, medical/surgical, 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.
 

  Stacey Jackson, MHL, RN, CCDS
  Lead CDI specialist
  Steward Health Care
  Dallas, Texas

Jackson is the lead CDI specialist at Steward Health Care for the northeast division which includes 10 hospitals. She joined Steward’s CDI program in 2016 and moved into the role as lead for one of the local hospitals in 2019. She transitioned into the role of lead CDI for the northeast division in 2021. Jackson’s responsibilities include mentoring and precepting CDI specialists new to the organization, and providing CDI and software program support/implementation to the 10 hospitals in the division, as well as the Florida market. She received her CCDS in 2019 and served as a co-lead of the Massachusetts ACDIS chapter from 2019-2022. Her 20 years of nursing experience including critical care, telemetry-medical/surgical, nurse education, and nursing leadership. She completed her Master’s in Healthcare Leadership in 2019.
 

  Amy Kirk, RHIT, CCS, CCDS, CRCR
  CDI regional manager
  Ensemble Health Partners, supporting Bon Secours Mercy Health
  Cincinnati, Ohio

Kirk is a CDI regional manager with Ensemble Health Partners, supporting Bon Secours Mercy Health. She has been in the health information field for 31 years with 17 years as an acute care inpatient professional coder at a level 1 trauma center and academic facility, and 14 years in inpatient CDI. Her coding experience and the increasing need for provider documentation education led her to help grow the CDI department in 2007 as a CDI specialist and becoming a regional CDI manager of five facilities in 2013. Kirk believes a strong CDI team has a foundation of processes and resources to support best practices. Using her experiences in coding and CDI, Kirk has helped their teams navigate through the challenges of the ever-changing healthcare environment.
 

  Lee Anne Landon, BSN, CCMC, CCDS
  Network director of the clinical documentation program
  HonorHealth Healthcare System
  Scottsdale, Arizona

Landon is the network director of the clinical documentation program at HonorHealth Healthcare System in Arizona. She has more than 16 years of experience in CDI. Previously, Landon has worked in multiple roles and settings, including acute care, case management, and utilization review for hospitals, insurance companies, and the New York state PRO. Her current CDI program includes all payer reviews, quality, and denial management. The program has established close collaborative relationships with the coding and quality department along with a working relationship with case management. Landon is an active member of her local ACDIS chapter and was a co-chairperson for two years. She has presented at ACDIS national conferences and at local chapter events. She is a member of the ACDIS Leadership Council, has served on Leadership Council Mastermind group, and has been invited to attend several Leadership Exchanges.
 

  Dawn Miller, BSN, RN, CCDS, CPC
  Clinical documentation coordinator/analyst
  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. She 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 quarterly CDI newsletter, collaborates with coding on diagnosis-specific projects, and is moving into a CDI analyst role. She is currently pursuing a master’s in health informatics and information management (MSHIIM) with planned degree completion in fall 2023.
 

  Natalie Negro, MPH, BSN, RN, CCDS
  Corporate manager of CDI
  Penn Medicine
  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Negro is the corporate manager of CDI at Penn Medicine in Pennsylvania. As manager, Negro provides education and support to encourage growth and development of an effective CDI department, follows metrics and key performance indicators, and collaborates with providers and other stakeholders to ensure the success of Penn Medicine. Some of her favorite initiatives Negro has worked on are those which leverage technology and the electronic medical record to improve documentation and patient care. Negro is passionate about CDI and all the ways in which it promotes accurate and complete code sets for public health data, hospital rankings, and hospital finance. An amateur detective at heart, Natalie loves board games, escape rooms, and anything that involves putting together clues and solving puzzles.
 

  Keri Smith, MSN, APRN, ACNS-BC, CCDS
  CDI specialist II
  Orlando Health
  Winter Garden, Florida

Smith is a CCDS-certified CDI specialist at Orlando Health in Winter Garden, Florida. She is a registered nurse, born and raised in Florida, with 18 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. She entered the role of a CDI specialist in October 2017, and currently functions as a second-level reviewer.
 

  Ashley Walker, DNP, RN, CCDS
  Clinical documentation improvement supervisor
  Birmingham VA Medical Center
  Trussville, Alabama

Walker is the clinical documentation improvement supervisor at the Birmingham VA Medical Center in Birmingham, Alabama. With more than 10 years in the nursing field, Walker began her pursuit in the field of clinical documentation in 2015. She took a break to serve as a clinical coordinator for a cardiology office, but documentation continued to hold her key interest. She has earned her CCDS and become the CDI Supervisor at the Birmingham VA. Her clinical background includes medical/surgical, cardiac ICU, and PACU nursing. She holds a BSN from Tuskegee University. She received her MSN in February 2021 and her DNP in March 2023 from Chamberlain University. While documentation is her passion, her greatest joy comes from her children Amari and Kaiden. 
 

  Brittani Winkler, MHA, BSN, RN, CCDS, CCDS-O
  Manager of CDI
  Wellstar Health System
  Collins, Ohio

Winkler is a manager of CDI at Wellstar Health System, which is based in Marietta, Georgia. In her current role, she is responsible for leading CDI initiatives across seven facilities, presenting metrics to hospital stakeholders, attending multidepartment meetings, and leading the outpatient HCC reporting initiative. Winkler joined the CDI world in 2017 and has a background in medical/surgical nursing, home health nursing, case management, and clinical resource management.
 

  Tammy Yohan, RN
  Lead ambulatory CDI specialist
  Bellin Gundersen Health System
  Westby, Wisconsin

Yohan is a lead ambulatory CDI specialist at Bellin Gundersen Health System, which is based in Wisconsin. She started her CDI career seven years ago in the inpatient pulmonary critical care and trauma intensive care units. Yohan assisted her health system with developing an ambulatory CDI department, instituting rounding into internal medicine, family medicine, residency, and specialty departments. Regional critical access hospitals were also added to the CDI program in 2021. She is a member of the ACDIS Leadership Council and the Wisconsin ACDIS local chapter, and has spoken at local chapter events.  

Click here to download the committee's scope of work. For questions about the committee, contact ACDIS Editor and Product Coordinator Karla Kozak (kkozak@acdis.org).

  Patricia Barry, RN, BSN, M.Ed, CCDS
  Director of Clinical Documentation Integrity
  Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
  Boston, Massachusetts

Barry is the director of clinical documentation integrity at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston. She has 25 years of nursing experience, with a focus on nursing education, career development, leadership, and clinical practice. She started her CDI career in 2008 and had the privilege to practice and lead multiple CDI teams in many academic medical centers, including Tufts, UCLA, Stanford, and the Queen’s Medical Center in Hawaii. Barry has participated in the CDI AHIMA program, has been a speaker at the Workforce Development Conference, has hosted many ACDIS chapter programs, has been featured in the ACDIS CDI Journal in 2017, and founded the New England CDI Leadership group.

  Sara Booker, BN, RN, CCDS
  CDI Team Lead
  Ascension
  Indianapolis, Indiana

Booker has 26 years of nursing experience in the areas of medical-surgical, critical care, step-down, endoscopy, and home hospice. She discovered the world of CDI six 6 years ago and has not looked back. Booker moved from a CDI specialist role to a supportive role as a CDI float and now is a CDI team lead. She has served on the Query Committee for the past four years. She has developed an orientation plan and educates new CDIs. She is a past president of the Indiana ACDIS local chapter and currently serves as its secretary.

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

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.
 

Shannon DiSilvestro, BSN, RN, CCDS
CDI Specialist
U Chicago Medicine Medical Center
Chicago, Illinois

DiSilvestro is a CDI specialist at U Chicago Medicine Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. She has been a nurse since 1995. Most of her career was spent in the emergency department (ED), but she has also worked in medical/surgical, telemetry, interventional radiology, non-invasive cardiology, care management, and utilization management. She worked as an Epic credentialed trainer, CPR instructor, and assisted with the startup of an ED sepsis initiative and chest pain initiative for credentialing for a past employer. She began working as a CDI specialist in 2019. At the University of Chicago, she is currently working on the startup of the NICU CDI program for their Level III NICU and 3M prioritization project as well as volunteering as an employee engagement ambassador. She is also finishing her master’s degree. 

  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.
 

  Diane Kenney, RN, BSN, CCDS
  CDI specialist
  Novant Health
  Charlotte, North Carolina

Kenney is a CDI specialist for Novant Health in Charlotte, North Carolina, with 36 years of nursing experience, serving the past 12 years in the CDI role. She presented a poster at the 2019 ACDIS conference and has served on the query template and mortality work groups. Her previous roles were clinical analyst and data abstractor for STS thoracic surgery, cath PCI/MI; CHF and ED outpatient core measures where she served as the facilitator for the thoracic surgery best practice team and co-facilitator for CP best practice and started her career in the ED for 19 years and serving on multiple committees. 
 

  Carrie Mayfield, MSN, RN, CCDS
  Clinical Documentation Supervisor
  Children’s Minnesota
  Edina, Minnesota

Mayfield is the Clinical Documentation Supervisor at Children’s Minnesota in Edina, Minnesota, with 35+ years in nursing, serving in leadership, direct and indirect patient care, and education roles. She has diverse experience throughout her career in medical-surgical, oncology, and float pool units, intensive and emergency care, home health and hospice, medical insurance/prior authorization review, home medical equipment, and nursing education. More than eight years ago, she started at Children’s Minnesota in the CDI Program and continues to expand her knowledge in pediatrics and CDI daily.
 

  Tina Scarborough, RN, CCM, CCDS
  CDI team lead
  AdventHealth
  Sebring, Florida

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.
 

  Sandra Thomas, MSN, RN
  CDI specialist
  U Chicago Medicine Medical Center
  Chicago, Illinois

Thomas is a CDI specialist at U Chicago Medicine Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. Her nursing career has been in MICU, CCU, cardiac cath lab, adult surgical heart ICU, home health, and as an instructor of CPR, ACLS, 12 lead ECG, and ventricular assist device. She worked as a credential trainer for EMR-EPIC applications. Thomas has volunteered and co-chaired committees to develop orientation processes in ICU, as well as for CDI programs. She has done IRB-approved nurse research. She has also served as a committee member for a trauma recovery program for patient experiencing post-traumatic life events.
 

  Rebecca Truett, MBA, MSN, RN, CCDS, CCA, CDIP
  Clinical Documentation Specialist
  Novant Health
  Winston-Salem, NC

Truett is a clinical documentation specialist and clinical documentation excellent educator for Novant Health in Winston-Salem, NC. She has over 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 also served as performed director of quality and risk management for nine years, and nursing director for an ambulatory surgery center for five years. Truett’s current role as clinical documentation excellence educator allows her to provide clinical documentation integrity expertise as well as program development and operational support to the clinical documentation management team. 
 

  Margie Watson, MSN, RN, CCM, CCDS
  Interim director of the integrated CDI audit department
  Wise Health System
  Decatur, Texas

Watson is the interim director of the integrated CDI audit department at Wise Health System in Decatur, Texas. In this role, she oversees both the utilization review and CDI staff. Over the years, she led a variety of nursing positions in community hospitals, large teaching facilities, a psychiatric hospital, a critical access rural hospital, and a long-term acute hospital. She worked a wide range of positions starting out as a staff nurse, moving into nursing administration, informatics, case management, hospital administration, and as an RN adjunct faculty instructor at both Kilgore College and E.T.B.U. Watson started in CDI in 2009, as an outgrowth of case management. She is an active member of ACDIS member and the ACDIS Leadership Council.
 

  Laura Werner, DC, RN, BSN, BA, MSN-ed, CDIP, CSS
  Executive director, CDI
  Community Health System
Werner has nearly 30 years of clinical experience, including a dozen in CDI where she has assisted in the design and implementation of acute care and critical access CDI departments, working both onsite and remote. She has been in education for over 35 years both online and in person and is currently an instructor for Gurnick academy of medical arts. Werner also serves as a nurse planner for HCPro and ACDIS.

Click here to download the committee scope of work. For information about this committee, contact ACDIS Associate Editor Jess Fluegel (jfluegel@acdis.org).

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

Belcher is the enterprise system CDI educator at WVU Medicine, based in Carroll, Ohio. She 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. Belcher’s CDI strengths include implementing successful projects for increased CC/MCC capture rates, and utilizing ACDIS/AHIMA-compliant queries to increase SOI/ROM and CMI scores. Data extraction and revenue cycle management, denial reviews, and 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 HCCs. Her strengths also include communication for peer-to-peer reviews for providers to use during conversations with insurance companies. Belcher also creates education and orientation plans for providers, nurses, and the 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.
 

Vanessa Elliott, MBA-HM, RN, CCDS
Enterprise System CDI Educator
WVU Medicine
Morgantown, West Virginia

Elliott has 28 years of nursing experience and 10 years as a CDI professional. Prior to entering the CDI arena, Elliott worked in a variety of settings such as case management, utilization review, and ICU (which included neuro, CICU, and a mixed ICU setting). Elliott is part of the ACDIS Leadership Council.

Maria Garcia “GiGi” Donohue, RN, BSN, CCDS
Regional Manager, Clinical Documentation Excellence
Orlando (Florida) Health

Donohue is the regional manager of clinical documentation excellence at Orlando (Florida) Health. In this role, she manages a dozen CDI specialists across three hospitals in the healthcare system and four outpatient case managers/documentation specialists. She has been in the CDI world since 2010, building on a decades’ long nursing career. Over the course of her nursing career, she worked in a wide variety of clinical settings as well as utilization management. 

  Maricus Gibbs, PhD, RN
  CDI Specialist
  Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist
  Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Gibbs is a CDI specialist at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He has worked in the health and human services industry for 23 years. Beginning as a nursing assistant in long term and rehabilitation facilities, he gained experience in education and eventually became a registered nurse in home health and inpatient acute care. After he earned his PhD in health services research, he entered the CDI field two years ago. 
 

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

Johnson is the system director of clinical documentation at Premier Health in Dayton, Ohio. She has been an RN for 30 years and obtained her masters in healthcare administration and informatics from Phoenix University. She assumed her current position in 2018 and acquired the coding department in October 2021. Johnson started her nursing career at Ohio Health in Columbus and has been with her current organization since 2001. Her recent roles include manager of case management and CDI team lead. She is a current member of the ACDIS CDI Leadership Council and was a member of the 2021/2022 CDI Leadership Council Mastermind group. 
 

  Tina L. Medrano, MSN, CCDS
  CDI Manager
  Christiana Care
  Newark, Delaware

Medrano is the CDI manager at Christiana Care in Newark, Delaware. She began her CDI career in 2015 when she left bedside nursing. During her surgical nursing career, she participated in making incremental safety changes while leading the quality and safety committee for her unit, served as charge nurse, and nurse preceptor. Over the years, she has grown her CDI team from six specialists to 13 and successfully navigated a computer-assisted coding implementation. 
 

  Alyce Reavis, RN, MSN, CCDS
  CDI Auditing Coordinator
  Evangelical Community Hospital
  Lewisburg, Pennsylvania

Reavis is the CDI auditing coordinator at Evangelical Community Hospital in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. She has been a registered nurse for more than a decade after being a public educator for 12 years. Since joining the CDI ranks, she has served as a preceptor for new team members, developed educational materials for CDI staff, coders, and providers, and helped her team members prepare to sit for the CCDS exam. She was a 2021 recipient of an ACDIS CDI Scholarship award.   

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

Tate is a CDI educator at Birmingham VA Medical Center in Virginia. She has held leadership positions including nurse preceptor and charge nurse from 2011-2015 and began her CDI career in 2015. Tate expanded her role in 2017 to become a team lead. In that role, 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. Her current role has expanded to mortality, hospital-acquired condition reviews, outpatient reviews, and providing continuous documentation education to providers.
 

  Ashley Wells, MN, CMSRN, RN, CCDS
  CDI Specialist III
  Methodist Health System
  Dallas, Texas

Wells is a CDI specialist III at Methodist Health System in Dallas, Texas. She has nine years of nursing experience. After three years in the Portland, Oregon area where she juggled her bedside role, graduate studies, adjunct nursing, and voluntary work for several nursing associations, she relocated to Texas and took a nurse educator role. Three years ago, Wells applied for a CDI position at her current organization and fell in love with the profession. In her current role, she has worked on educational efforts for providers and staff, interdisciplinary projects related to quality metrics, and obtained her CCDS. Recently, she also took on the clinical validation appeals role for her department. 

2023 CDI Week Advisor:

  Kelly Sutton, RN, BSN, MHL, CCDS​   
  CDI Educator
  Providence Health & Services
  Oregon

Sutton’s CDI career started in 2015 as a frontline 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 reviews in the CDI role. Navigating through a rapidly changing financially-based program as it transitioned to a quality-based program was a welcomed challenge. She achieved her CCDS certification in 2018. Sutton 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 her to participate in the creation of policies and processes for the division. Responsibilities included oversight of the onboarding process for all new employees. Additional responsibilities included developing education for 40+ employees and multiple physician groups across 11 facilities. The role of corporate CDI educator and Implementation specialist occurred in August 2021. Responsibilities included providing CDI, coding, and physician education and software program support to over 40 facilities across the system. She obtained her CCS certification in 2022. Currently, Sutton is the CDI educator for Providence Oregon. Responsibilities include auditing and providing CDI and physician education across all ministries in Oregon. She is a member of several professional organizations, including ACDIS and the Florida ACDIS local chapter. Sutton participated in the ACDIS Virtual Education Curtain Call in 2020 and presented an HCPro webinar in 2022. Sutton currently serves on the ACDIS Advisory Board and the ACDIS Leadership Council (2023-2024).

Elected to the board in 2021; serving through April 2024

Click here to download the committee scope of work. For questions about the committee, contact ACDIS Editor Jess Fluegel (jfluegel@acdis.org).

  Haaris Ali, MBBS, MBA, CDIP 
  Senior consultant
  Claro Healthcare
  Chicago, Illinois

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 CDI and denials management, and has led the centralization, standardization, and scaling of 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.
 

  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 nine years now. Byerly joined ACDIS in 2018 and obtained her CCDS shortly after. She is 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 30 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.   
 

  Angelica Cage, MBA, BSN, RN, CCDS, CCS, CDIP
  System retrospect CDI manager
  AdventHealth
  Altamonte Springs, Florida

Cage has eight years of CDI experience including acute care hospital and system CDI manager, senior consultant advisor, and manager in CDI consulting services. Her background includes critical care nursing in the trauma/surgical/neuro ICU, burn ICU, and PACU, as well as in utilization review, case management, and quality/risk management. With a passion for CDI advancement, ethics, and quality improvement, Cage has brought success to CDI programs by integrating a more collaborative workflow and relationship between CDI and HIM, establishing advanced CDI training, implementing quality-focused objectives, revising physician education, participating in appeals and denials management, and serving as subject matter expert to hospitalist readmissions reduction council. Cage has been a speaker at the 2021 and 2022 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 Committee, ACDIS Regulatory Committee, and chair of the ACDIS Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She is also a member of the Texas ACDIS chapter.
 

  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, MHA, BSN, RN, CCDS, CDIP
  CDI manager
  Guidehouse
  Orlando, Florida

Everett is an experienced nurse and clinical documentation specialist with extensive expertise in adult, pediatric, and obstetric care. With a career spanning more than a decade, Everett has demonstrated a deep commitment to improving the quality of patient care through accurate and complete clinical documentation. As a subject matter expert on pediatric and obstetric care, Julian has played a key role in developing and implementing clinical documentation improvement programs that have helped healthcare organizations improve the accuracy and completeness of their patient records. She has also worked closely with healthcare professionals to provide education and training on best practices for clinical documentation, helping to ensure that patients receive the highest quality care possible.

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, and pediatric surviving sepsis.

  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 specialists. 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.
 

  Faisal Hussain, MD, MHIIM, RHIA, CCDS, CDIP, CCS 
  Executive Director, CDI
  Wellstar Health System
  Marietta, Georgia

Dr. Hussain is the executive director of CDI at Wellstar Health System. In his current role, he is responsible for overseeing the CDI strategy and operations for the entire health system, which comprises of 9 hospitals and more than 300 medical offices, along with other service offerings. Dr. Hussain has previously worked in both outpatient and inpatient settings to assist CDI initiatives at large physician practices and hospital systems throughout the country and has led multiple CDI teams throughout his career towards achieving success. He is a current member of the ACDIS CDI Leadership Council and the ACDIS Regulatory Committee. He regularly speaks at multiple national and local conferences, including the national AHIMA conference, the annual ACDIS conference, and several local state ACDIS chapter meetings and state AHIMA conferences.
 

  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 Director of Programming Rebecca Hendren (rhendren@acdis.org). 
 

  Angelica Cage, MBA, BSN, RN, CCDS, CCS, CDIP
  System Retrospect CDI Manager
  AdventHealth
  Altamonte Springs, Florida

Cage has eight years of CDI experience including acute care hospital and system CDI manager, senior consultant advisor, and manager in CDI consulting services. Her background includes critical care nursing in the trauma/surgical/neuro ICU, burn ICU, and PACU, as well as in utilization review, case management, and quality/risk management. With a passion for CDI advancement, ethics, and quality improvement, Cage has brought success to CDI programs by integrating a more collaborative workflow and relationship between CDI and HIM, establishing advanced CDI training, implementing quality-focused objectives, revising physician education, participating in appeals and denials management, and serving as subject matter expert to hospitalist readmissions reduction council. Cage has been a speaker at the 2021 and 2022 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 Committee, ACDIS Regulatory Committee, and chair of the ACDIS Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She is also a member of the Texas ACDIS chapter.
 

  Sandra Chotolal-Lachman RN, BSN, CNORE, CCDS
  CDI Specialist Level 3
  Johns Hopkins Healthcare System
  Kissimmee, Florida

Chotolal-Lachman's career in nursing began in the Caribbean twin island state of Trinidad and Tobago in 1990. She went on to work in the emergency room and did a few years of industrial nursing in the agricultural sector. She was offered a contract to work at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio where she accumulated more experience in the surgical step-down ICU, while she moonlighted in the emergency department at University Hospitals of Cleveland. She moved to Florida in 2005 to work in an emergency department in Largo. Two and a half years later, she was accepted into a peri-operative program in the operating room and went on to earn her CNOR certification and specialized in spine surgery. She was offered a surgical coordinator position at Baycare for orthopedics, plastics, and podiatry, and then moved to Advent Health as their surgical team lead for the main campus in Tampa. It was there that she was introduced to CDI in 2013 and obtained her first CDI training in JATA.

Six months later, she applied to HCA and received the ACDIS boot camp training. In 2015, she was offered a position with HCA at the division level, monitoring programs at different hospitals and being responsible for onboarding and training new hires, which gave her a great sense of fulfilment. She moved over to Baycare where she was introduced to Nuance and Clintegrity and continued on her path of onboarding newer CDI specialists, after which she took on the position of supervisor of the west region for their 11 hospitals. She was then offered a position at Mayo Clinic, supporting the Jacksonville team after a short stint onsite in Rochester. She is now a CDI specialist, Level 3 at Johns Hopkins Healthcare system, responsible for onboarding and training new hires and query audits as well as other odd projects and audit responsibilities. 
 

  Okemena Ewoterai, BSN, MA, CCS, CDIP, CCDS
  Associate Director of Clinical Documentation
  Montefiore Medical Center
  New York, New York

Ewoterai is an associate director of 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. 
 

  Tiara Minor, RN, BSN, CCDS
  Senior Manager of CDI
  University of Miami Health
  Miami, Florida

A Hampton University alumna, Tiara Minor is the Sr. Manager of CDI at the University of Miami Health System in Miami, Florida. She has nine years’ experience in CDI, with the last six in CDI/coding leadership. During her tenure in CDI, she has worked with various types of hospital systems including large academic medical centers, multi-hospital systems, smaller community hospitals, a children’s hospital, and outpatient clinics. Spending two and a half years in consulting broadened her experience with exposure to different facilities, leadership operations, vendor-relations, and technology solutions. Prior to taking the leap into CDI, she worked in the emergency department, initially as an emergency medical technician (EMT) then registered nurse. Minor is passionate about CDI innovation, team development, healthcare quality, and an advocate for diversity. She and her team received the 2022 ACDIS Achievement Award for Diversity in CDI. 
 

  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.
 

  Virginia Sabir-Karac, RN, CCDS
  CDI Supervisor
  UASI
  Lilburn, Georgia

Sabir-Karac has been a registered nurse for 19 years and a CDI professional for 15 years. She started her career in an academic prestigious hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, in medical-surgical and orthopedics. She worked as a CDI manager for two years prior to the pandemic. When the pandemic started, she felt compile to go back to the bedside and serve, so she worked as a nurse supervisor on an orthopedic trauma unit, which changed into a full COVID unit during her first week on the job. Once she became pregnant with her son in 2021, she decided to go back to remote CDI as a CDI supervisor.

  Andrea Smith, RN, BSN, MSN, CCDS
  CDI Manager for Inpatient and Outpatient CDI
  Washington Regional
  Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Smith is the CDI manager for inpatient and outpatient CDI. She has been an RN for 21 years. Her nursing background includes ICU, cardiology, dialysis, and medical-surgical She entered CDI in 2014 and has been a CDI manager since 2018.

  Nicole Tebo, RN
  Director of CDI Operations
  Advocate Health
  Marinette, Wisconsin

Tebo is the director of CDI operations in the Wisconsin region of Advocate Health. Her nursing background ranges from medical-surgical, oncology, and leadership. She has worked in CDI for more than 10 years, beginning with implementing a CDI program at an independent hospital with much success. When her hospital joined Advocate Aurora Health, Tebo moved into a regional CDI manager role overseeing teammates across the north region of Wisconsin. In 2022, she became the director of CDI operations overseeing CDI team in all 16 hospitals across Wisconsin.  
 

  Melody Tyiska, MBA-PM, RHIA, CCS, CPC, CPMA, CHA, OHCC, CCP-P
  Director of HIM & CDI
  St. John's Episcopal 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 undergrad 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. 

Objectives:

1. Draft industry guidance in the form of white papers or position papers
2. Provide helpful guidance through CDI Journal articles, or tips for publication in CDI Strategies weekly email newsletter
3. Join conference calls with fellow Committee members and the ACDIS administration on regular meetings conducted via conference call, to discuss ongoing projects and relevant industry updates. (No meetings will be held in December and May.)
4. Contribute to other committee efforts as interest, expertise, and availability permit

To download the Committee's scope of work, click here. Questions or concerns? Email Editor and Product Coordinator Karla Kozak (kkozak@acdis.org). 
 

 Travis Bias, DO, MPH, FAAFP
 Chief Medical Officer
 3M Health Information Systems Division
 Silver Spring, MD

Dr. Travis Bias is the Chief Medical Officer of the Clinician Solutions (3M M*Modal) business housed within 3M’s Health Information Systems Division. Travis is a board-certified Family Medicine physician with practice experience in the private and employer-based space, currently practicing via telemedicine. He previously served in a clinical operations consulting role as a Clinical Transformation Physician Consultant within the Performance Matrix consulting team. He has also taught as a lecturer in Comparative Health Systems at the George Washington University School of Public Health.
 

 Eric R. Brown, MD, PhD, FACOG, FACS
 Medical Director for Care Management & Physician Advisor
 Advocate Health
 Milwaukee, WI

Dr. Brown possesses a strong background in clinical quality improvement, patient safety, clinical/surgical practice, clinical administration, clinical information technology, care coordination, patient safety, risk management, regulatory compliance, utilization management and clinical documentation improvement/integrity leadership. He has over 20 years of healthcare experience, including over 14 years of clinical practice experience, over eight years as chief of Gynecology, six years as patient safety/quality officer, three years as chief medical officer, over three years as medical director care management/physician advisor, and over five years as performance improvement physician consultant assisting well over one hundred twenty healthcare organizations. He is also a board-certified Obstetrician-Gynecologist with Fellowship status in The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The American College of Surgeons and The American Board for Quality Assurance and Utilization Review Physicians, and currently serves on the Committee on Government Affairs for The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

 AJ Hegg, MD
 CDI Medical Director 
 Essentia Health Systems
 Duluth, Minnesota
 

Dr. Hegg has been the CDI medical director for the Essentia Health System since 2019 and is based out of Duluth, Minnesota. He recently became the medical director and lead physician advisor for utilization management at Essentia in 2022. He is board-certified in critical care, internal medicine, and emergency medicine and practices clinically as an intensivist and emergency physician. He completed residency and fellowship at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan in 2012, and graduated from medical school at the University of Minnesota in 2006.

 Disha Mahendra, M.D.
 Regional Medical Director & Physician Advisor
 Advent Health
 Crowne Point, Indianapolis
 

Biography forthcoming...
 

 Vaughn Matacale, MD, CCDS
 Director of Clinical Documentation Advisor Program
 Vidant Health
 Greenville, North Carolina

Matacale is a physician specializing in hospital medicine who began training and working in the physician advisor role in 2007. In 2013, he took a full-time role as a physician advisor with a mission to develop the advisor role and grow a physician advisor team for the Vidant Health system, which covers most of eastern North Carolina. Serving as the director of the advisor team, he has helped it grow to four physicians and a physician assistant who conduct post-discharge pre-bill reviews and provide support and education for coding, CDI, and medical staff throughout the health system.

Through proactive involvement and collaboration with CDI and coding, Matacale has established regular representation and collaboration with the quality, informatics and IT, evaluation and management auditing, audit and compliance, utilization review (UR), and appeals departments, and the Vidant accountable care organization. He currently serves as the chair of the PSI committee and is a member of the hospital patient safety and quality improvement committee. Matacale also has more than 13 years of experience in UR reviews and continues to practice hospital medicine. He has had the privilege of speaking at five ACDIS conferences, as well as other national and regional conferences.
 

 Christopher Riccard, MD
 VP of Hospital Medicine and CDI
 Advent Health
 Altamonte Springs, Florida
 
Following undergraduate training Dr. Riccard attended medical school at Ross University. He completed his family medicine residency in Tallahassee, FL which was followed by a relocation to Daytona Beach, FL to work for AdventHealth Daytona Beach. Dr. Riccard originally practiced as a nocturnist prior to accepting a leadership position with the Hospitalist program. Early in his career, he transitioned into a Medical Director role with the AdventHealth Medical Group Daytona Beach Hospitalist team followed by an advancement into the Regional Executive Medical Director of Inpatient Medicine role for the program. In this role he oversaw strategy and clinical operations of the Hospitalist, Neurohospitalist, SNFist and Palliative Care programs across 6 campuses. Dr. Riccard currently serves as the VP of Hospital Medicine and Clinical Documentation Integrity for AdventHealth, a 51 Hospital system covering 9 states, guiding strategy and system operations in these areas.