ACDIS update: Ballantyne, Elmore, Parent, and Jones win 2020 ACDIS Achievement Awards
Every year, ACDIS celebrates exceptional CDI professionals through the ACDIS Achievement Awards. Nominations come from peers in the industry. The ACDIS Conference Committee then reviews applications and chooses the final winners. This process takes hours of work and dedication to complete. Click here to read about the award criteria, nomination, and selection process.
This year, the full Achievement Award Ceremony will take place at Staying Engaged: ACDIS Presents Virtual Education and Community. This event takes place next week, June 17-19, and during the Award Ceremony on day two, ACDIS Director Brian Murphy and Boot Camp Instructor Laurie Prescott will talk to this year’s award winners to learn about the innovative efforts that make these amazing CDI professionals’ achievements something to celebrate.
This year’s winners are:
CDI Professional of the Year
Robin Jones, RN, BSN, MHA/Ed, CCDS, is the division director of CDI at AdventHealth-West Florida Division based in Tampa. A nurse for more than 20 years, she transitioned to CDI in 2004 and was instrumental in establishing the program there. Robin started her CDI journey in the summer of 2004. At first, she was unsure about her decision to leave bedside but soon realized that CDI satisfied her love for learnin and gave her the ability to use her clinical knowledge. She attended the first ACDIS conference in Las Vegas and was one of the 120 people that took the first CCDS exam.
In 2017, Robin accepted a division director position with AdventHealth. Here she was challenged with revitalizing the existing CDI program, transitioning the program from a revenue cycle focus to a key quality initiative, building relationships with physicians, engaging administration, and implementing a solid collaborative work process.
Robin has been increasingly involved in ACDIS since that time, having served three years on the Advisory Board, appearing on the ACDIS Podcast, presented twice at the conference, and was a planned co-speaker for the 2020 event until it was canceled. She is an active member of the Leadership Council and an alumna of the Leadership Exchange.
She believes that a CDI program can be the key to navigating the every changing payment structures and stringent quality guidelines that hospital organizations are faced with. Robin encourages and supports her staff in obtaining their CCDS certification with several planning to earn their designation this year.
Robin’s passion for CDI is obvious in both her role as a leader of CDI at AdventHealth and from a national perspective. Next to her family, Robin loves to talk about CDI.
Her colleagues say that “She has worked tirelessly to not only educate our associates but train our leadership team to become true leaders. At the same time, Robin has work extensively with physicians and administrators to enhance the understanding of CDI and why it is important for the organization.”
Congratulations, Robin!
Recognition of Professional Achievement
Valerie Parent, RN, BSN, CCDS, is the system CDI manager at Northern Light Health in Bangor, Maine. A nurse for 25 years with clinical experience in a wide variety of settings, she became involved in with CDI in 2012 when she worked at a critical access hospital that was having documentation issues.
She attended a CDI Boot Camp in Massachusetts and accepted a full-time CDI position. She moved through the ranks as lead CDI and CDI manager, recently being promoted to her current role where she has been instrumental in breaking barriers and garnering support for CDI involvement with quality, retrospective queries, telecommuting, clinical denial appeals, and increasing educational opportunities for CDI.
She also serves the broader CDI community by co-leading the Maine ACDIS local chapter, routinely contributing to discussions on the ACDIS Forum, donating materials to the Forms & Tools Library Committee, speaking at the Massachusetts and New York AHIMA/CDI conference, at the ACDIS Symposium. She has presented two posters at past ACDIS conferences.
Her director says that “Valerie continues to be an advocate for patients and staff. She has been a positive and highly respected leader helping CDI staff to continue to achieve goals and objectives and ensuring her staff has access to valuable education resources and maintains competency.”
Congratulations, Valarie!
Excellence in Provider Engagement
Karen Elmore, BSN, RN, CCDS, is the documentation quality coordinator at BJC HealthCare in St. Louis, Missouri. She began the CDI program at Boone Hospital in Columbia, Missouri, (part of BJC HealthCare) in 2008.
Her previous experience includes 18 years as a neurological intensive care unit nurse and the clinical education lead. Karen earned her CCDS in 2014, and in 2016 became a documentation quality coordinator for BJC where she supports 14 CDI specialists and four CDI leaders across four hospitals in the Columbia/St. Louis area.
Her current areas of focus include account management, second level reviews, quality measures, and so much more.
Karen also started the Heart of Missouri ACDIS local chapter in 2009 and in 2015 brought together other Missouri chapters for a state-wide, full-day event. They’ve since held three Show Me State conferences gathering more than 100 participants from as far away as Florida. Although, they had to cancel the event for this coming fall due to the pandemic, it’s been both personally and professionally rewarding to see how these groups have collaborated together to create such an amazing event these past few years.
Still, Karen somehow manages to find time to serve on the conference committee, the chapter advisory board, and, just recently, was elected by the ACDIS community to serve on the ACDIS Advisory Board.
Her nominating colleague Karen says that she is beyond passionate about linking a provider’s documentation to the exceptional care they deliver.
“Because of her efforts,” her colleague says, “We have improved our query response rates and the response time across the organization. Even our most stubborn of providers has responded to Karen's requests. Her delivery of education is infectious and engaging—so much so—that the providers can’t help but listen.”
Congratulations, Karen!
Rookie of the Year
Steven R. Ballantyne, RN, is a CDI specialist at Banner Health in Phoenix, Arizona. His background includes 10 years of acute care, four years of correctional nursing, and one year of case management/utilization management.
Steve joined the CDI team in August 2018 after doing the difficult work of educating himself by enrolling in an ACDIS Boot Camp and finding a mentor who helped him land his current position.
His colleague says that “Steven has a passion for serving others.”
A veteran of the U.S. Army, he does volunteer work with his church as well as local community organizations to help prevent abuse.
Not only has he shown tremendous growth in his role, Steven has worked on process improvement activities, proposing a new coding/CDI mismatch process, working toward developing a stakeholder-requested report for heart failure length of stay information.
“As a new CDI specialist, Steve has participated in ICU resident education, sending daily census reports and length of stay reports, assisted with developing a DRG focused length of stay report for stakeholders. And, during orientation wrote the highest financial impact query of the quarter for the entire CDI department,” one of his nominators writes.
Another colleague says that “Steve is one of the kindest, supportive, and knowledgeable people in the field of CDI.”
Congratulations, Steven!