Meet a Member: Curiosity lead to a career in CDI

December 12, 2018

CDI Blog - Volume 11, Issue 246

GiGi (front, right) with the rest
of her CDI team members.

Maria Gracia (GiGi) Donohue, BSN, RN, CCDS, is the CDI manager at Lakeland (Florida) Regional Health, and a member of the Florida ACDIS chapter and of ACDIS national.

ACDIS Blog: How long have you been in the CDI field?
Donohue: I started as a CDI team leader in 2010. Before that, I was a utilization management specialist for seven years.

ACDIS Blog: Why did you get into this line of work?
Donohue: It was a new program for my facility at the time. I was curious about what it was, so I did some research and became even more interested in it.

ACDIS Blog: What has been your biggest challenge?
Donohue: When I started to work as a CDI team leader, I had no experience. I had to learn the job as quickly as I could to become a resource to my team and be able to educate the providers on what CDI is about.

ACDIS Blog: What has been your biggest reward?
Donohue: Working as a manager and director for CDI at four different facilities, including Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and sharing all that I’ve learned through the years with my CDI specialists. Also, it’s been very rewarding to have the ability to increase the response rates and agree rate from providers after working hard educating them about CDI.

ACDIS Blog: How has the field changed since you began working in CDI?
Donohue: The focus is not just reimbursement anymore, but also quality. The expansion of CDI to the outpatient setting and risk adjustment has also been a big change.

ACDIS Blog: Can you mention a few of the "gold nuggets" of information you've received from colleagues on the Forum or through ACDIS?
Donohue: I’ve found the articles on adjusting CDI efforts for value-based care initiatives and quality reviews very helpful over the years.

ACDIS Blog: If you have attended, how many ACDIS conferences have you been to? What are your favorite memories?
Donohue: I have attended five ACDIS conferences. My favorite memory is from when I attended the 2016 ACDIS conference in San Antonio. It was very nice to see many of the CDI specialists who worked alongside me and under me again. I met so many vendors and consultants in person who I’d only spoken with by phone or e-mail. I got to spend time with many members of the ACDIS Maryland chapter since I was working at Johns Hopkins then. We had our own table and took a lot of pictures of the group. I learned so much from the speakers who spoke about focusing more on quality and why we need to.

ACDIS Blog: What piece of advice would you offer to a new CDI specialist?
Donohue: Use your clinical knowledge. Use critical thinking when reviewing a patient’s record. Understand that gaining the providers’ trust and confidence may take time, but with patience you can succeed in developing a very good relationship with them. It’s all about how you approach them. You need to take into consideration that the providers are not just very busy, but also overwhelmed with so many expectations to ensure quality of care.

ACDIS Blog: If you could have any other job, what would it be?
Donohue: A CDI specialist.

ACDIS Blog: What was your first job?
Donohue: My first job was in nursing. After college, I became a registered nurse and that’s all I have done since.

ACDIS Blog: Can you tell us about a few of your favorite things?