Stacy Cody

2014 CDMHC Employee of the Year & Kirby Bond Distinguished Service Award Honoree!

Stacy Cody became our QI Director 2 years ago. In that short time, she has dramatically improved our QI Department; our QI scores; and most importantly, the quality of our documentation. Stacy has accomplished this huge feat by approaching QI through the lens of a front-line clinician, one who has to see several clients daily; handle clinical crises daily; attend team meetings; meet with parents and teachers; complete collaborative documentation as the portal will allow; and complete that documentation in accordance with ever-changing, increasingly stringent, sometimes ambiguously defined QI standards. Stacy has created a team that clearly believes its mission is to support clinicians in supporting the recovery of those living with mental illness. Her team is tutorial in its approach with clinicans. Subsequently, clinicians seek out the QI team for guidance and help. Clinicians do not fear Stacy’s team as they do not see its members as “police.” As a result, clinicans are improving their documentation.

QI is not a bad word at CDMHC, but one that holds hope and potential. Because CDMHC is rather large with approximately 170 clinicans, Stacy and her team have a huge “caseload” to serve! They support the clinical supervisors in supporting the frontline clinicians. Stacy teaches these supervisors not only the “hows,” but the “whys.” Understanding the “whys” helps the supervisors understand and embrace the importance of various rules and standards.

After our most recent SCDMH QI audit last month, Stacy created a speadsheet that not only showed where CDMHC needed improvement, but explained to managers how improvement in those specific areas would have altered our scores on the audit. One could look around the room and see several staff “getting it” like never before. She also praised staff for improving our score from an 84% on the SCDMH QI audit in 2104 to an 89% on the SCDMH QI audit in 2015. In the SCDMH QI audit exit interview, Stacy was praised by the SCDMH QI team for almost miraculous improvement in numerous areas. SCDMH QI cited that the size of CDMHC made the improvements even more remarkable.

Staff know that Stacy will advocate for them when she believes that they are right. Last year, Stacy successfully lead CDMHC in its arbitration with SCMH QI. Arbitration was a difficult, anxiety producing event, but Stacy believed so strongly in the strength of CDMHC staffs’ documentation that she felt compelled to advocate for them.

Conversly, when Stacy knows that documentation is weak or that there are deficits needing improvement, she will firmly, but kindly explain the needed imorovement to them. As it should be, Stacy’s number one concern is the quality of care to the patients served by CDMHC.

I think Stacy’s job is one of the most difficult in the center, but she has executed her duties in a most exemplary way, so much so, that other centers have asked Stacy to share her talents with their QI directors. Considering that Stacy has held the position for only 2 years, her success is even more compelling.

As if Stacy is not busy enough, she finds time to co-chair the CDMHC holiday toy drive every year. This drive provides toys for over 100 families. As you can imagine, this effort requires hours and hours of hard work outside of business hours. And, Stacy still carries a small caseload – no, I am not kidding! She stills sees patients for mutliple reasons. She wants to continue to be an active user of EMR, so she can really help staff; she wants to continue to experience the rigors of being a front-line clinican; and lastly, she loves patient contact.

Stacy Cody is an outstanding employee; a perfect QI director, and a remarkable woman. I am proud to call her the CDMHC Employee of the Year and to nominate her for the SCDMH employee of the Year.

– Deborah Blalock, CDMHC Executive Director

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