Note from the ACDIS Director: There and back again—a journey to San Antonio and the heart of CDI

By Brian Murphy

If you’re a fan of The Lord of the Rings—the classic book by J.R.R. Tolkien, or the fine film adaptations of recent years—you might recognize its meaningful closing line.

Samwise Gamgee, the true hero of the story, returns home after a long and arduous journey that takes him to Mordor and the shining kingdoms of Gondor, and then back again to the Shire and his family. At the end of it all, he collects his family in his arms, takes a deep breath, and reflects on it all with a simple phrase:

Well, I’m back.

I feel a lot like Sam after a recent journey of my own undertaking—a week-long trip to San Antonio, Texas, for our 11th annual ACDIS conference. The conference is by far our most hectic and stressful time of year, but it’s also our best time of the year and most rewarding, if that makes sense. The conference is simultaneously a ton of hard work but also a massive battery recharge, a jolt to the system that makes you realize how lucky you are to be part of a great profession in healthcare.

I can tell you, having done this 11 times, that conferences are a LOT of work. About 16 months’ worth of work, to be honest. It starts with identifying a city, taking site visits to the location to ensure that the space will work. Next is contracting with hotels and the convention center. Then comes the work of recruiting a conference committee, and brainstorming and developing educational tracks that best serve our members and attendees. Then comes speaker recruitment. Abstracts begin to come in. Our conference committee reviewed more than 170 abstracts this year, agonizing over each one. Then speaker contracting. Brochure development. Developing marketing plans. Interviews with speakers on ACDIS Blog and ACDIS Radio. Reviewing PowerPoint presentations with our subject matter experts and nurse planners. Setting menus. Working with exhibitors and sponsors and coordinating the build-out of our exhibit hall. Packing up our booth and bookstore. Shipping. Finalizing travel plans. Onsite registration. Badge changes… it goes on and on.

I have so many people to thank, but need to single out our amazing events team, led by our events director Shannon Storella. This group makes it all run smoothly. When the WIFI goes out, or a speaker unexpectedly cancels, or the coffee runs out at the morning break—all routine occurrences at these type of events—these guys get it done.

Make no mistake, the CDI profession is alive and well—and growing. We have seen expansion into post-acute care settings including inpatient rehab, long term acute care facilities, pediatrics, and psychiatric hospitals and services. We’re seeing large growth into outpatient settings including hospital clinics and physician practices. Huge influxes of foreign medical graduates are joining CDI, finding a calling and fulfilling the promises of the American dream by applying their overseas clinical acumen to this great profession.

At the conference our ACDIS advisory board completed a day-long strategy session in which we identified several areas where we will continue to drive the profession forward. I look forward to working on these initiatives over the coming year. CDI chart reviews are far more complex than they were 11 years ago. A profession that once sought only to maximize revenue through CC and MCC capture is now clarifying all elements that impact quality, patient safety, and risk. Mortality reviews, patient safety indicators, hospital acquired conditions, are all part of the day-to-day efforts of CDI professionals. Audits by Recovery Audit Contractors and the Office of Inspector General have heightened awareness of compliance and clinical validity of reported diagnoses. Technology including computer assisted coding and natural language processing has increased the depth and reach of reviews, but is also changing the nature of the CDI profession and instilling an unsettling feeling of “will artificial intelligence eat my job?”

But underneath the acronyms, the regulations, and the software, are the beating heart of real people working hard every day in a profession they love. That point was driven home to me again in San Antonio. There has never been a greater demand for CDI professionals possessed of critical thinking skills, clinical acumen, and a willingness to learn and to change with regulatory demands and the changing nature of healthcare.

I also want to thank all of you for taking this journey with us, for the last 11 years. I cannot express the profound gratitude I feel when I hear how ACDIS has helped out seasoned professionals like advisory board members Jeff Morris, Erica Remer, Robin Jones, and Katy Good. The big secret is that they and many others have helped me grow, personally and professionally, with their incisive view of the profession, even as we have helped them on their impressive careers.

The conference is also a social occasion. I enjoy my annual discussion with Stephanie Cantin-Smith about heavy metal, another passion of mine. The ACDIS conference is a family reunion. The conference allows us to meet many new faces, too. I met a pair of awesome New Mexico-based CDI professionals—Anna Kramer and Rhonda Bull—who made the trip via a motorcycle “trike,” calling themselves the “505 club” for the original area code of New Mexico from which they had come. Conference attendees could follow the journey of the “505 club” to San Antonio and back again via our popular conference app. I won’t forget them!

I welcome your ideas for helping to improve the CDI profession. Let me know what you love about CDI and how we can best serve you. Criticism is welcome too. If we’re off-base, let us know. Continual improvement, and integrity of the medical record through accurate and complete physician and provider documentation, is what we strive to do every day. That’s our goal and our mission at ACDIS. I take this responsibility very seriously, and I thank you for allowing me to work as your director. I love my job.

We’ll get there, and back again, on this journey together.

See you in Orlando in 2019.

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on Murphy’s LinkedIn account. Murphy is the director of ACDIS. Contact him at bmurphy@acdis.org. To volunteer to serve on the 2019 ACDIS Conference Committee please click here.