Membership update: Meet the ACDIS team

This year at the 10^th annual ACDIS conference, the ACDIS team held their first ever meet-and-greet with attendees. This session gave the team the opportunity to introduce themselves and explain what they can do for the members.

For those not in attendance, however, here’s a brief rundown of the team:

Brian Murphy—ACDIS director

• Responsibilities: Overseeing ACDIS' strategic direction. Developing industry guidance and providing an authoritative voice in the industry in conjunction with the ACDIS Advisory Board. Overseeing production of national ACDIS conference. Host of ACDIS Radio show.
• Fun fact: Brian has some wide-ranging interests outside of ACDIS, including sword and sorcery/fantasy fiction, high school football, and heavy metal. He once hosted a heavy metal cover band at his home for a party!

Rebecca Hendren—Associate director, membership and product development

• Responsibilities: Responsible for driving product research, managing new product development from conception to launch, overseeing editorial content, facilitating member networking, planning conferences, and monitoring product and association performance and profitability.
• Fun fact: Rebecca is British. She is from Crawley in the beautiful county of West Sussex and graduated from the University of Manchester. She now lives in North Carolina and is a proud Tar Heel.

Melissa Varnavas—Associate editorial director

• Responsibilities: Overseeing ACDIS' editorial publications, working with industry experts to bring forward thought leadership, engaging members in networking efforts through ACDIS more than 40, volunteer-led, local chapters and networking groups, as well as through ACDIS’ quarterly membership conference calls.
• Fun fact: Melissa holds her master’s degree in fine arts, poetry and is currently working on two volumes of original work.

Linnea Archibald—Editor

• Responsibilities: Responsible for writing and publishing the weekly eNewsletter, CDI Strategies, developing and writing articles for the CDI Journal, and maintaining the ACDIS Blog. Linnea also updates the ACDIS website, maintains the ACDIS social media platforms, and helps to develop webinars, books, and surveys/polls. She also lends Melissa a hand with the local chapter maintenance and updates.
• Fun fact: Linnea’s 4’11” great-great-grandmother once fought off and killed a black bear with only her hands. (Linnea has not done anything nearly as cool.)

Penny Richards—CCDS coordinator and member services specialist

• Responsibilities: Manages the Certified Clinical Documentation Specialist program (approved and processes exam and recertification applications and maintains the CCDS database). Moderates CDI Boot Camp office hour calls. Approves Local Chapter and vendor applications for CCDS CEUs for your continuing education activities.
• Fun fact: Z85.3 and published author on the subject (but not the author of the romance novels written under the same name.)

To learn more about the ACDIS core team, the Boot Camp Instructors, or anyone else behind the scenes, check out the ACDIS Leadership page.