ACE Wednesday BOD Recap.
Chad Sines
As should be a little obvious, the follow ups are the day after. It takes a while to have followup conversations and get the notes together. For real time updates, follow my twitters, blog, or facebook.
The Board of Directors meeting on Wednesday went from 9-5.
The key take away can be summed up as follows: No more can the medical transcriptionist focus only on the “old way” of doing things. What worked before will not work in the future. We must retool to stay relevant. There is a necessity to adapt and incorporate new technology.
Highlights
Board Elections
President Elect- Karen Fox-Acosta (experience in education, advocacy, credentialing)
Treasurer- Bonnie Monico (past president, speaker of the house)
Secretary- Lisa Day Williams (previous AHDI secretary)
Our Poor Financial Picture
A recurring theme was the need for new revenue streams. AHDI continues to be in a financial hurt locker. There is a great deal of ideas but few resources to tackle the Association’s goals. The Association must have new revenue streams.
This was an item I wanted to see before ACE but there has not been a clear vision laid out as of yet. I will wait to see how this changes over the course of the meeting.
Model Curriculum
A new 5th edition of the model curriculum is in the works. It will incorporate topics focusing on EHR, technology, etc, that are rapidly becoming critical needs for today’s healthcare documentation experts. There are about 27 approved schools. Current listings show about 320 medical transcription schools. AHDI will look to market the approval process to those schools who it appears could meet criteria.
My question is what are we doing about the scam schools and those who we know abuse potential MTs? Are we just avoiding them because it is easier to address those who could make the cut? I would like to see AHDI at least develop a marketing plan to educate and, if necessary, look to find a way to report programs that knowingly scam and abuse students. This is a major issue in healthcare documentation education that would be a noble cause for the Association
How Do We Measure Success?
Discussion was had on how we measure the success of the Association. Some mentioned membership numbers were a poor indicator as was finances. It seems that the measurement is just abstract. No real vision on how to measure success was given.
This is a measure that industry has long figured out. You design a balanced score card that focuses on how you are currently meeting your strategic goals. The concept is simple, easy to implement and powerful. You cannot hide behind the abstract or ignore the data. It would break it down into categories like finance, membership numbers, number of credentialed MTs, attendees at ACE/Advocacy, etc. Essentially the Board would decide a small group of core indicators. They would then determine how they would measure each along with their goals for the current period. AHDI could present this annually to all members. The ability to have a multi-focused approach to success would allow us to stop focusing on things we cannot measure.
Notable from Karen Fox
We need a more sophisticated member who is a better communicators. We need more diversity. We need to do all this at the front end, i.e. we need to be proactive in our approach and less reactive.
I could not agree more with Karen. Our members and our profession is very vocal to each other but very quiet when it comes to expressing themselves to those who can make change happen.
Low ACE Attendance.
ACE attendance as well as the recent CDIA attendance were both extremely low. One suggestion was to have a combined AHDI/CDIA meeting.
This might be the time that we finally put business owners and MTs in front of each other to ask real, honest questions of each other. The location would be critical as members do not have the finances to afford meetings as it is.
Interfix
A new contract was negotiated with Interfix to help increase the reach of KB.
I would like to have known how much revenue AHDI has received from Interfix/KB to date. Why not provide KB to all members as was hinted about when it was originally mentioned. Should a product purchase by a company be tied to a membership or should it be the other way around? Is KB too expensive?
CDIA Partnership
Nothing much was said on this topic other than many still complain about it and the review of the agreement is due soon.
Is CDIA a valuable partner if they will not support mandatory credentialing? It seems that their refusal to get behind this goal is a critical issue that pits our staff against themselves. AHDI wants it, CDIA does not..So how will it get done?? Should the two be merged and CDIA members be made corporate AHDI members?
Overall, the meeting was interesting, but I did not see any of the critical issues addressed with new game changing plans. To be fair there are still a few more days left for big announcements, so time will tell. Crossing my fingers that this will be the ACE that changes it all.
So what are your thoughts, questions, and concerns?
Chad Sines
AHDI-Southeast Delegate