Local chapter update: Last minute ideas for your next chapter meeting!

At times, a planned speaker may have travel trouble, health issues, or scheduling conflicts at the last minute. At other times, a downloaded webinar ends up with a few technical glitches, or leaders/hosts may find themselves simply one educational session short! But when these situations arise, canceling your chapter meeting isn’t the only option. In the recently updated Local Chapter Leadership Toolkit, we have created eight separate educational sample meetings using online educational resources available to ACDIS national members that can help facilitate your meeting. Here is just one of the topic outlines!

Compliant provider queries

This is a broad topic with many nuances. Choose several volunteers to review the materials and to present what they learned to the group during the meeting. Chapter leaders may wish to reach out to a guidance author to see if they would be willing to speak to your group about the guidance. (Authors’ names are typically at the end of the document. A Google search or email to the ACDIS national team at info@acdis.org can usually locate the individual’s contact information.)

• Ask meeting participants to bring their own query policies and procedures. Divide into small teams of mixed facilities to review each other’s policies paying particular attention to items which owners particularly like or dislike about their own policies. 
• Back in the large group, ask participants to discuss an item or anecdote about how they developed their policies physician(s) of the value of CDI.
• ACDIS/AHIMA Guidelines for Achieving a Compliant Query Practice—2022 Update 
• Sample queries and query policies in the ACDIS Resource Library
• “Q&A: Establishing an escalation policy for inappropriate queries,” published in CDI Strategies on February 2, 2023
• “Case study: Construct a compliant query template,” published in the January/February 2023 edition of the CDI Journal  
• “Q&A: ‘Unable to determine’ query responses and KPIs,” published in CDI Strategies on November 23, 2022
• “Physician engagement and moving CDI ‘upstream’,” published in April 2022

To check out all eight sample meetings, you can click here or visit the Local Chapter Leadership Toolkit page here (which contains many other helpful resources for chapters like this!). And, as always, feel free to reach out to us with any questions at info@acdis.org!

The following is a list of upcoming events for ACDIS local chapters. Visit your local chapter’s webpage on the ACDIS site for additional information about upcoming meetings. To join a chapter if you haven’t already or to update your chapter contact information/affiliation, click here.

April:

• The Central Pennsylvania ACDIS chapter meets Friday, April 21, 2023, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., via webinar, for their second quarterly meeting. For information, contact Courtney Spangler (cspangler4@wellspan.org).
• The CDI Educators Networking Group meets Friday, April 21, 2023, 1–2 p.m., via webinar. The program is titled, “Clinical Documentation Improvement Process for Cancer Patients,” and will be presented by Cheryl Radin-Norman, LPN, RHIT, CTR. For information, contact Danita Arrowood (darrowood@nthrive.com).
• The Minnesota ACDIS chapter meets Wednesday, April 26, 2023, 1–2 p.m., via webinar. The program is titled, “COUGH to Determine a Gram-Negative Pneumonia,” and will be presented by Adriana Cecchini. For information, contact Laura Anderson (laura.m.anderson@optum.com).
• The Virginia ACDIS chapter meets Friday, April 28, 2023, 12–1:15 p.m., via webinar. The program is titled, “State of the CDI Industry,” and will be presented by Linnea Archibald, associate editorial director of ACDIS. For information, contact Amanda Palacios (amanda.palacios@rivhs.com).

May:

• The Greater New York ACDIS chapter meets Thursday, May 18, 2023, 2–3 p.m., via webinar. The program is titled, “Overcome ICD-10-CM/PCS Cardiovascular Coding Challenges,” and will be presented by Adrienne Commeree, RHIA, CPC, CPMA, CCS, CEMC. For information, contact Annette Brotzman (annette.brotzman@rochesterregional.org).
• The Maryland ACDIS chapter meets Friday, May 19, 2023, 1–2 p.m., via webinar. The program is titled, “Respiratory Update,” and will be presented by Rebekah Douglas, BTPS, RRT, CCDS, CCS, and Kristine Kesner, RRT, CCDS, CCS. For information, contact Carol McNutt (cmcnutt@lifebridgehealth.org).
• The Virginia ACDIS chapter meets Friday, May 19, 2023, 12–1:15 p.m., via webinar. The program is titled, “Two or More Sequencing Guidelines to Improve CMI and GLOS,” and will be presented by Angela Carmichael, MBA, RHIA, CDIP, CCS, CCS-P, CRC. For information, contact Amanda Palacios (amanda.palacios@rivhs.com).
• The Minnesota ACDIS chapter meets Wednesday, May 24, 2023, 1–2 p.m., via webinar. The program is titled, “What Physicians Need to Know about Complications and Patient Safety Indicators,” and will be presented by Cheryl Ericson, RN, MS, CCDS, CDIP. For information, contact Laura Anderson (laura.m.anderson@optum.com).
• The Wisconsin ACDIS chapter meets Thursday, May 25, 2023, 1–3 p.m., via webinar. The topics are AMI and long-term effects of COVID. For information, contact Alicia Whiteford (awhiteford@mhemail.org).