Note from the Associate Editorial Director: Thanks for awesome October events

By Melissa Varnavas

I was sitting with my mother Saturday, October 20, in her sunny second-floor kitchen going over some bills when my phone buzzed.

“Who’s that?” she asked, worried she was keeping me from other plans.

I flipped the phone over to find a message from Karen Elmore from BJC HealthCare in St. Louis, complete with the smiling faces of attendees at the third-annual “Show-Me State” CDI conference and a group pic of Elmore with fellow leadership volunteers Rebekah May and Mariann Dinello.

“Conference is going wonderfully well!” she wrote.

Elmore and a committee of 12 other volunteers comprised of Missouri’s three state subchapters meet monthly for a year to plan the agenda, set the venue, select the speakers, and solicit vendor involvement for the multi-day event. Sessions included topics such as CDI and coding shared governance, quality and risk management, mortality reviews, and query compliance. The group held a “Friday Night Live” pre-conference meet-and-greet and held a raffle for a seat at the national event in May.

Elmore sent over a ton of other photos for us to share with the ACDIS community. Take a look here.

Missouri wasn’t the only group to hold a large-scale event last week, however. The California ACDIS chapter held its multi-day event, with pre-conference meet-and-greet Thursday, October 18 into educational programming on Friday, October 19, at Liberty Station Conference Center in San Diego. The California event included sessions on managing sepsis, second-level reviews for quality measures, and 2019 coding updates, among other topics.

Oregon, too, held a full-day educational event in Bends featuring sessions on stroke management, hospital acquired conditions/patient safety indicators, and trauma injuries.

Last week, Maryland ACDIS chapter met as well from noon to 2 p.m. for a discussion of IPPS rules, APR-DRGs, and the new definitions of MI.

And this coming week, Alabama ACDIS holds a full-day event of its own and the CDI educator network meets via telephone conference line.

All these endeavors come from the voluntary efforts of a few, kind and dedicated, CDI professionals who with the ACDIS administrative team to provide easy and affordable access to professional networking and development opportunities. We say it all the time—ACDIS’ strength comes from its members. It’s particularly true on the local level. We are so proud of these amazing volunteers and their tremendous collaboration.

For information about what’s happening in your area please see the weekly listing included in this eNewsletter or visit www.acdis.org/local-chapters and click on your state. If you’re not a local chapter and would like to join, please use the online membership roster.

Editor’s note: Varnavas is the associate editorial director of ACDIS. Contact her at mvarnavas@acdis.org.