Local Chapters Update: ACDIS Director Brian Murphy attends TN local chapter event

by Brian D. Murphy

Last week I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the joint Tennessee Health Information Management Association/Tennessee ACDIS local chapter meeting. The Tennessee Hospital Association kindly hosted the all-day event at their wonderful facility in Brentwood. The theme of the meeting was The Impact of ICD-10 and Payment Reform on Clinical Documentation Improvement.

I have to admit I was a bit nervous as I boarded the plane for the trip, for two reasons:

1. There would be HIM/coding professionals and CDI together in the same room! Plenty of potential for conflict, right?
2. The last time I was in Tennessee for the sixth annual ACDIS conference in Nashville I was pressured into riding a mechanical bull and line dancing. Was I about to risk life and limb and utterly embarrass myself for a second time (I’m referring to the line dancing part, by the way)?

As it turns out my fears were unfounded. It wound up being a conflict-free meeting in which plenty of concrete strategies for getting CDI and coding on the same page were shared. Some highlights:

• Trey LaCharite, MD, FACP, SFHM, CCDS, sharing nuggets of gold (and plenty of great one-liners and predatory pictures) on defending your hospital against Recovery Auditors.
• Jim Kennedy, MD, CCS, CCDS, CDIP, on managing conflicting guidelines in ICD-10. Wow, Dr. Kennedy knows ICD-10 and its nuances inside and out!

Kathy Hallock, RHIA, CDIP, spoke on CDI/coding/quality measures, the three-legged data quality stool. Some wonderful ideas on how these departments interrelate, and how her facility managed to reduce its patient safety indicator rate by 52%.

I also got to network and meet several new people and see some familiar friends, including Sherry Clark, Tom Blanton, Larry Faust, Judy Rochelle, and others. These TN AHIMA and TN ACDIS teams deserve huge credit for pulling together a terrific event. Here’s to many more.

I can now definitively say that bringing CDI and HIM/coding specialists together—and ACDIS and AHIMA together under the same roof—is a wonderful thing.  And I managed to avoid the bull, too.

Special thanks to CDIMD Physician Champions and Healthcare Resource Group (HRG) for their sponsorship of the event.

The following is a list of upcoming events are various local chapters:

February

• The next ACDIS Westchester (New York) Chapter meeting will be held Thursday, February 16, 3-5 p.m., at Phelps Memorial Hospital in Sleepy Hollow. An agenda and additional information will be forthcoming. For additional information, contact Kerry Seekircher at kseekircher@nwhc.net.
• Kentucky/Southern Indiana ACDIS Chapter meets Thursday, February 16, 1-4 p.m., at Clark Memorial Hospital in Jeffersonville. For information, contact Leah N. Savage, at Leah.Savage@nortonhealthcare.org. 
• The Minnesota and Wisconsin ACDIS chapters join for a webinar hosted by ACDIS Editorial Director Melissa Varnavas regarding CDI salaries and career ladders on Wednesday, February 22, 1-2 p.m., central, via teleconference. Click here to register for the webinar. For information, contact Faye Bakke at faye.bakke@essentiahealth.org.
• The Alabama ACDIS Chapter meets Friday, February 24, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., at DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa. For information, email acdisalabama@gmail.com or contact Jeffrey Wayne Morris at jwmorris@health.southalabama.edu.
• The North Carolina and South Carolina ACDIS chapters join forces for a group event on Friday, February 24, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at Palmetto Health Baptist in Columbia. Presentations feature former ACDIS Advisory Board members Fran Jurcak on preparing for the CCDS exam, Cheryl Ericson on the future of CDI profession, and Don Butler on the role of physician advisors in CDI efforts. The program also features a presentation on CDI specialists place at interdisciplinary rounds with Holley Pegram, Sandie Pressely, and Kay Blue. For information, contact the NC ACDIS Chapter at ncacdis@gmail.com.

March

• The pediatric networking group APDIS meets Thursday, March 2, via webinar. For information, contact Leah N. Savage, at Leah.Savage@nortonhealthcare.org. 
• The Indiana ACDIS Chapter Spring Conference takes place Saturday, March 4, at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis.
• The Kansas City Missouri ACDIS Chapter meets Tuesday, March 7, at 2-4 p.m., at Liberty Hospital. For information, contact Christine Schattenfield, cneuman@saint-lukes.org.
• The Ohio ACDIS Chapter meets March 23 at the University Hospitals’ customer service center in Highland Heights. For information, contact Lisa McLuckie at lmcluckie@wchosp.org.
• The Massachusetts ACDIS Chapter meets Thursday, March 30, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., at The Miriam Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. For information, contact Joyce M. Williams, at JWilliams@Lifespan.org.

Save the date

• The St. Louis Missouri ACDIS Chapter meets April 19, 6:30-8 p.m., at St. Luke’s. Outside food/drink is against hospital policy, so no pot luck this time. For information, contact Michael McKelvey, michael.mckelvey@bjc.org.
• The California ACDIS Chapter holds its third-annual conference Friday, September 15, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Torrance Memorial Medical Center. For information, contact Rani V. Stoddard at stoddardrv@henrymayo.com.  
• Missouri’s three ACDIS local chapters join for a full-day conference event on October 14, at the University of Kansas Hospital. For information, contact michael.mckelvey@bjc.org.