Director’s Note: Kudos to the home team staff of the 7th Annual Conference

The 7th annual ACDIS conference has come and gone and I wanted to thank the behind-the-scenes staff for all their tremendous efforts in Las Vegas. As some of our attendees know, these conferences are a ton of hard work— (very) early mornings, long days on sore feet, and some long evenings as well. I know that our attendees and ACDIS members were as impressed as I was with our staff members’ hard work and dedication. It was truly all hands on deck.

A few note-worthy performances I wanted to recognize:

Conference and Events Manager Kathy Wilson did an outstanding job as usual helping to hold it all together. She is our glue. And if she is the glue, event coordinators Maggie Collins, Kerry Neenan, and Alexandra Datalo were the staples, tape, and paper clips helping her keep the exhibit hall together. Behind the scenes in the weeks and months leading up to the conference they helped customer service with registration, established connections with the hotel staff, and generally ensured that the exhibit hall ran smoothly.

Senior Conference and Events Producer Wendy Walsh worked with each of our more than 40 speakers from the time they were chosen by the Conference Committee through post-conference wrap-up. She ensured presentations were on schedule, met ANCC continuing education requirements, and made sure that speakers’ travel arrangements were set. Simply loading so many presentations onto flash drives and laptops and testing every slide represents a daunting task during a conference this large and we appreciate the long hours she and her teammates dedicated to our cause.

CDI Boot Camp instructors Cheryl Ericson, Laurie Prescott, and Sharme Brodie did a great job at our pre-con ICD-10 for CDI Boot Camps. They got terrific reviews and managed two packed sessions with the same grace as they offer students as typically classroom-sized sessions. It was a great way to kick off the conference. These talented ladies went above and beyond their wheel-house of expertise, throughout the conference jumping in to help at the ACDIS book store, chatting with potential Boot Camp attendees, and even serving as room moderators for several sessions.

In a typical day Director of HIM and coding for HCPro, Inc., Shannon McCall and Director of Live and Online Events Julie McCoy are brainstorming new products, reviewing marketing, talking with corporate leadership, or helping staff members solve pertinent concerns—while they do a tremendous job, we wonder if they’d been born in the 1920s whether they may have had a different calling as elevator operators. One of the conference breakout sessions took place on the 26th floor of the hotel is the lovely “sky view” ballroom. Which meant someone needed to help guide the roughly 400 people to the right elevator bank to the right session—a task they accomplished with a smile.

Inevitably, I have left other helpful staff members off this list, members such as the production folks who created our workbooks and our operations manager who worked the weekend prior to the conference start to make sure all our shipments arrived on time.

We have a great team here at ACDIS and our parent company HCPro, and I just wanted to take a moment to publicly thank them. More than ever it is important to acknowledge the greater team behind the faces you know as ACDIS. Just as your CDI efforts require the support of many different departments and individuals–so too is the success of ACDIS. For a slideshow of our staff at work during the conference visit the ACDIS Blog.

I know that 2015 in San Antonio will be just as amazing. See you there.