Strengthening Documentation to Drive SEP-1 Compliance and Quality Performance (CE Session)
Includes a Live Web Event on 09/24/2025 at 11:30 AM (PDT)
Description:
This session is part of Sepsis Alliance Summit 2025.
In today’s value-based care environment, understanding the intersection of clinical documentation and quality performance measures is critical. This session will demystify three key components of hospital performance: SEP-1 (Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock Early Management Bundle), CDI (Clinical Documentation Integrity), and HVBP (Hospital Value-Based Purchasing), and explore how they interact to influence both compliance and reimbursement.
Participants will gain clarity on what each program entails, how they are interconnected, and why documentation accuracy is pivotal to success. The session will also highlight common pitfalls in clinical documentation that often lead to SEP-1 compliance failures and provide real-world examples of how CDI programs can proactively address these challenges. Attendees will leave with practical strategies to strengthen documentation processes, improve SEP-1 performance, and enhance overall quality metrics under HVBP.
Learning Objectives:
At the end of this session, the learner should be able to:
- Define what SEP-1, CDI, and HVBP stand for and how each affects the other;
- Identify common documentation pitfalls that lead to SEP-1 compliance fallouts;
- Demonstrate how CDI programs can impact SEP-1 performance.
Target Audience:
Nurses, advanced practice providers, physicians, emergency responders, pharmacists, medical technologists, respiratory therapists, physical/occupational therapists, infection prevention specialists, data/quality specialists, and more.
Alexis Wells, MSN, RN, CCDS, LSSYB
Associate Director of Education and Quality
Emory Healthcare
Alexis Wells, MSN, RN, CCDS, LSSYB, has been a registered nurse since 2008, working in various states (Michigan, Texas, California, Florida, and Washington) and areas including CVICU, neuro ICU, med/surg ICU, telemetry, bone marrow transplant unit, and home hospice. This provided a well-rounded foundation to become a Clinical Documentation Specialist in 2015. Within six months, Alexis was promoted as the CDI Clinician Coordinator, facilitating education to providers and cultivating relationships with essential ancillary departments such as Nutrition, Wound Care, and IT. In 2021, Alexis took on the opportunity to become a Quality Educator, combining the two worlds of CDI and Quality. Now, she serves as the Associate Director of CDI over Quality and Education at an 11-hospital health system, continuing to break down silos and advocating to make it easy to do the right thing, especially for the very vulnerable and critical septic population.
Alexis Wells had no relevant financial relationships to disclose.
Stacia Gandee, RHIA, CCS, CDIP, LSSYB
Manager of Clinical Documentation Integrity
JPS Health Network
Stacia Gandee, RHIA, CCS, CDIP, LSSYB, has been a dedicated Clinical Documentation Specialist (CDS) since 2017. She advanced quickly in her career, stepping into the specialized role of Clinical Validation CDS in 2019 and then into management in 2020. Her journey in clinical documentation is rooted in over a decade of experience as an inpatient coder, which provided her with deep expertise in both coding and documentation.
Stacia is an active member of her organization’s sepsis committee and has attended national conferences to ensure her CDI Program is optimizing impact in patient care, documentation, and coding practices. Stacia brings ambition, knowledge, and coding expertise that is instrumental to organization-wide change in practice as it relates to the integrity of clinical documentation and coding.
Stacia Gandee had no relevant financial relationships to disclose.