Note from the Associate Director: Symposium lookback and a preview of things to come

By Rebecca Hendren

Last week we held our inaugural ACDIS Symposium: Outpatient CDI in the intimate setting of a suburban Chicago hotel. The hotel was surrounded by a beautiful golf course, where the first golden colors of autumn were beginning to emerge on the trees, and the setting made us feel somewhat cut off from the rest of the world as we spent two days discussing the new frontier in CDI.

We had sessions focused on practical issues, such as building compliant queries in the outpatient setting, and we had sessions from organizations that have established outpatient programs, where the speakers shared how they do it and their lessons learned along the way.

But the most fun parts were the times that we had open discussions. It was fascinating to hear everyone talking together and sharing ideas and thoughts. We all learned a lot and people made connections to lean on as they develop their outpatient programs.

To keep the learning going—and to extend it to those who couldn’t attend the program because it was so popular that we ran out of space—we are offering a special online version of the ACDIS Symposium called the Outpatient CDI Workshop. We will share as many of the sessions from the event as possible, as well as offering some innovative networking events. It all begins October 18 and will be offered every Wednesday and Friday at 1:00 p.m. ET for five weeks. You’ll be able to listen live or you can listen on demand at your convenience. Stay tuned as we’ll be able to share the details in the next few days.

I want to take a moment to especially thank Tamara Hicks, RN, BSN, MHA, CCS, CCDS, ACM, the director of clinical documentation excellence at Wake Forest Baptist Health, and Jessica Vaughn, RN, BSN, CCDS, the supervisor of outpatient CDI at Wake Forest Baptist Health, who served as the conference committee for this first-time program. They reviewed slides and offered helpful feedback, they offered guidance in developing the agenda, and they even participated in our lightning round ideas session and on our Q&A panel. Tamara and Jessica, thank you for sharing your expertise with us. I thoroughly enjoyed working with you.

I will close out my notes today by thanking everyone who attended and who joined in making it an engaging couple of days. Hope to see you next year!

Editor’s note: Hendren is the associate director of membership and product development at ACDIS. Contact her at rhendren@acdis.org.