I'm Back! (Again.)

If you're a regular reader of this blog...and hey, who in the lower 48 states isn't...you'll know that the term "regular reader" is a misnomer, as you can't be a regular reader of an irregular publication.  (I suppose you could be irregularly irregular, which signifies atrial fibrillation and a need to listen closely to the list of side effects on the Eliquis commercial; or you could be regularly irregular, in which case Dulcolax may be your product of choice.)

The blog is irregular because of me.  I'll go through these phases where I'm determined to write, and then others where I'm more determined to sit and stare blankly at Facebook.  If you look at the dates between my blog postings, Facebook wins.  A lot.  But I've recently gone through the humbling experience of estate planning for my closer-than-I-would-like-to-think-it-might-be regression to entropy, and I think that even in my dotage (Kim Jong Un is not the only person who can use that word...I'm still working on cofevre) I might have something to say.  If nothing else, this blog and the "Keep Our Schools Healthy" Kansas school influenza cartoon are my stakes in eternity, and as Beowulf tells us that's really all you've got in the end:

"...the kindest to his men, the most courteous man, the best to his people, and most eager for fame."

(That sounds exactly like me.)

As some of you may know, last October I went full-time bureaucrat.  I'm the Physician Advisor for Clinical Documentation Improvement at Baptist Health, a five-hospital system in Jacksonville, Florida (I'm in JAX, of course, in my Forever Commune with the Dental Empress).  The job is pretty much trying to translate clinical terminology into the administrative language of medicine, and it's really quite fun.  One of the best parts is that I've been given the opportunity to write for the blog site of the Association of Clinical Documentation Improvement Specialists (ACDIS).  They've been great in allowing me pretty much free rein to write about whatever interests me, and my pieces show up regularly.  I have no idea if anyone reads them, but it's fun for me, and I've decided that my goal is to become the "Bad Boy" of Clinical Documentation.  I've never been a Bad Boy.  I'm very excited.

I share all this with you because the blog will, from time to time, begin to feature the original versions of pieces I've written for ACDIS.  As such, they may have some clinical documentation stuff in them that you may frankly find kind of boring.  (It's not an industry built on adrenaline.)  But I wanted to post the originals because by the time the ACDIS people get through with the professional edit, they sound like they come from an interesting, informed, and fundamentally sound human being.  You know, not me.  I also figured that since I had ten or so pieces already saved up, I could get a lot of material out on the blog quickly.  At one post a week, that gives me two and a half more months to play on Facebook.

The first of this genre was posted last May, after I attended my first ACDIS Conference and toured the exhibit hall, goody bag in hand.  I'll post the next one tonight as well, with more to follow.  Some are incredibly wonkish, some are just fun.  More of the real stuff on the way as well.  Thanks!