Conference corner: Jones, Petrilli, Henry, Yuen, and UC Davis Medical Center win 2021 ACDIS Achievement Awards

Every year, ACDIS invites CDI professionals to nominate their peers for the ACDIS Achievement Awards. The ACDIS Events Committee then reviews applications and chooses the final winners. This process takes hours of work and dedication to complete. Click here to read about the award criteria, nomination, and selection process.

This year, the full Achievement Award Ceremony took place this week at 2021 ACDIS Conference in Dallas, Texas. During the ceremony, ACDIS Director Brian Murphy and CDI Education Director Laurie Prescott introduced this year’s award winners.

This year, ACDIS awarded five awards:

• CDI Professional of the Year: This award recognizes an individual who stands out as a consummate representative of the best attributes of a CDI professional. The nominee must have at least five years as a CDI professional at the time of their nomination.
• Recognition of CDI Professional Achievement: This award recognizes an individual who has made significant achievements as a CDI professional in their facility or within their broader organization. The nominee must have at least three years as a CDI professional at the time of their nomination.
• Excellence in Provider Engagement: This award recognizes an individual who has made a substantive difference within their organization and the broader community through enhancing medical staff understanding, collaboration, and engagement. The nominee must have two or more years of experience in this role at the time of their nomination.
• Rookie of the Year: This award recognizes an individual who has served in the CDI profession less than two years from the time of his or her nomination but has made a significant contribution in that time frame.
• Diversity in CDI: New in 2021, this award is intended to honor those organizations whose CDI departments are going above and beyond with creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. Diversity in CDI looks like folks from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, those from minority groups in leadership positions, different educational backgrounds outside of the traditional clinical realms, inclusion of all gender identities and sexual orientations, and all abilities.

Please join us in congratulating this year’s award recipients:

CDI Professional of the Year

Deb Jones, MSN, RN, is the CDI director at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a large academic medical center affiliated with Harvard Medical School in Boston. Reporting to the quality and safety department, the CDI team collaborates with quality professionals, clinical teams, health information management (HIM), and coding to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the medical record.

Since taking on the director role in October 2017, Jones expanded the program to include commercial payer reviews and risk adjustment queries, and 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.”

“She pioneered us to be better than we thought we could be,” said one of her nominators. “She has touched and enriched the lives of her staff and as such we have had no turnover in her tenor. Deb encourages each team member to excel to their personal best.”

In addition to her contributions to her CDI team, Jones is a frequent contributor to ACDIS’ publications, a current member of the ACDIS Leadership Council, and a repeat poster presenter at the national conference.

“She has earned the respect of her peers in CDI nationally and shows ongoing initiative, leadership, and dedication,” wrote one of her nominators. “Deb is a passionate advocate for her staff and never misses a beat to promote our work to whomever she is speaking to.”

Congratulations, Deb!

Recognition of CDI Professional Achievement

Anny Pang Yuen, RHIA, CCS, CCDS, CDIP, is an independent CDI/HIM/revenue cycle consultant at AP Consulting Associates LLC in the Philadelphia area. She has more than 20 years of experience working at multifacility health systems as well as community hospitals, health plans, and academic centers nationwide. Yuen’s expertise is in revenue integrity, inpatient and outpatient CDI implementations/reinvigorations, coding compliance, HIM operations, and EHR implementations. She has served in both CDI and HIM executive leadership positions and has extensive consulting experience as a subject matter expert.

“Anny has made many great contributions CDI through the years. I feel that the profession would look very different without her input,” wrote one of her nominators. “Anny can serve as a role model to clinical documentation specialists of all backgrounds who are just starting in the field.”

Yuen has also contributed substantially to the CDI industry by serving on the ACDIS Advisory Board from 2015-2018 and co-authoring the ACDIS book First Steps in Outpatient CDI: Tips and Tools for Building a Program and the AHIMA book The Complete Guide to CDI Management. She currently serves as the co-chair of the AHIMA Revenue Cycle Practice Council and has previously served as the co-chair for the AHIMA CDI, Quality, and Revenue Management Practice Council from 2018-2020.

“I have known Ms. Yuen for ten years, and I have collaborated with her on various initiatives sponsored by AHIMA and ACDIS,” wrote one of her nominators. “She has impressed me with her professionalism, knowledge, and enthusiasm for our shared profession.”

Congratulations, Anny!

Excellence in Provider Engagement

Christopher Petrilli, MD, SFHM, CCDS, is an assistant professor of medicine at the NYU School of Medicine. Additionally, he serves as clinical lead of the Manhattan campus for value-based management and medical director for CDI for NYU Langone Health in New York City. He has authored 30 peer-reviewed publications, including a first author manuscript in the British Medical Journal, which was one of the first major papers describing the risk factors for COVID-19 in the United States. In his role as medical director for CDI, he takes great pride in strengthening the collaboration among health system leaders, the CDI team, and providers to improve documentation efficiency and effectiveness. He achieves this through education and novel EHR solutions.

“Dr. Petrilli is driven and passionate about CDI, and he has consistently demonstrated this via the robust initiatives that he has worked on with our department and provider teams to improve cohesion and ultimately clinical documentation as proven via measurable outcomes,” wrote one of his nominators.

Petrilli is currently a member of the ACDIS Advisory Board, and his work has been featured in the CDI Journal, CDI Strategies, and on The ACDIS Podcast: Talking CDI. He has a true passion for teaching, methodologically implementing rigorous process improvement strategies, and tracking process, as well as outcomes metrics to assess for sustained improvement over time.

“As an ACDIS board member and podcast contributor, as well as a teacher and provider, he is passionate about education, not only for members of the CDI world, but for the providers, which has resulted in a tremendous respect for, and understanding of, the critical value that our team brings to the table,” according to one of his nominators. “He is the most engaged champion for provider engagement I have ever had the pleasure of working with.”

Congratulations, Dr. Petrilli!

Rookie of the Year

Nichole Henry, BSN, RN, is a CDI specialist 3 at UCI Health in Orange, California. She’s been a registered nurse for 11 years and has experience in critical care and case management. Henry’s desire to utilize her clinical expertise, analytical and investigative skills, coupled with her passion for education inspired her to transfer to the CDI department in November 2019.

“Nichole’s colleagues have expressed their admiration for her superb critical thinking skills and her ability to think through issues in a highly logical manner, especially given that she is new to the CDI role,” wrote one of her nominators. “Nichole’s peers often seek her advice when dealing with complex cases as she is clinically sound, will gather all required elements related to the case, and is able take into consideration different perspectives before rendering an opinion. In addition, Nichole will actively seek out assistance when she is faced with a difficult review or situation.”

Since that joining the CDI team, Henry has attended an ACDIS CDI Boot Camp, achieved ACDIS-approved CDI Apprentice status, and completed an ICD-10 training course. She is also an active member of ACDIS and the California ACDIS local chapter.

“Nichole’s enthusiasm re-energized the CDI team—we are definitely a more efficient, effective and cohesive team because of her presence!” wrote one of her nominators.

Congratulations, Nichole!

Diversity in CDI

New in 2021, the Diversity in CDI award celebrates the work of an organization to advance diversity and inclusion within their CDI department. This year, the winning organization is the University of California (UC) Davis Medical Center, and it was nominated multiple times.

“Diversity and inclusion are a core value at UC-Davis. Our organization is dedicated to it, and we have goals every fiscal year to promote diversity and inclusion, through webinar and in-person training on diversity and inclusion,” wrote one nominator. “We are intentional in ensuring everyone is trained to understand their bias to promote a culture of inclusion.”

According to the nominators, UC Davis has consistently worked to create an inclusive and diverse CDI department (and organization). The team includes all genders, multiple racial and ethnic backgrounds, and professional backgrounds.

“We have no restrictions [on who we hire],” wrote one nominator. “We look for qualified allied health professionals, which can range from certified social worker, RHIA, coder, nursing, and foreign-trained medical graduates. The diversity in our team is what makes us so successful.”

All team members are encouraged to speak to HR and/or their leadership if any issues of discrimination arise without any fear of retaliation. Additionally, all members of the UC Davis CDI team have input into decision-making for the department. This is done through:

1. Scheduling meetings with the whole team to introduce process changes under consideration
2. Disseminating a written policy/document summarizing the changes to all staff to collect confidential feedback
3. Engaging the physician advisor for input on new proposals
4. Making a final decision and implementing process changes based on the feedback received from staff members

In addition to receiving this 2021 ACDIS Achievement Award, UC Davis has also been recognized by Forbes magazine for its efforts in diversity and inclusion.

“Diversity, inclusion, and equity are a top priority at UC Davis is the message is echoed from the top down. I believe we demonstrate working conditions, compensation, climate, development opportunities that all align with [these goals],” wrote one nominator. “I have never worked at another organization that exemplifies a culture of acceptance.”

Congratulations, UC Davis Medical Center!