CDI Staff Bandwidth and Growth

After two-plus years of tight educational and staffing budgets, the CDI field is undergoing a bit of a hiring boom, allowing teams to expand to new review areas and deepen their existing ones. Determining when to hire and how to orient and train new staff members can be challenging, though. And of course, hiring and training new staff cannot take the place of continued engagement with your existing team—often remotely—and the myriad of other responsibilities leaders hold.

In partnership with 3M, the Association of Clinical Documentation Integrity Specialists (ACDIS) CDI Leadership Council asked several of its members to evaluate the results of a nationwide survey detailing the current state of CDI staffing levels, hiring trends, new staff orientation methods, technology’s impact on CDI, and team collaboration. The Council members were then asked to discuss their organizational approach to staff growth and bandwidth. In this industry report, readers get a full inside look at how CDI leaders are approaching staffing challenges, supplementing efforts with technology, and fostering collaboration!

Three biggest talking points:

• According to the survey results, nearly 69% of respondents said they are currently understaffed and 31% said they feel their staffing is adequate.
• Despite the prevailing feeling that departments are understaffed, 62.56% of respondents reported having already hired new staff at the time of the survey in early 2022. An additional 14.43% had hired contract or outsourced staff already. Another 15.17% planned to hire more staff but hadn’t yet.

• Unsurprisingly given that most CDI programs are now at least partially remote, survey respondents reported that the biggest impact of technology has been the facilitation of remote work (87.68%).