ACR Healthcare Section

Section Minutes

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 [Section Chair Bill Stempel's email to Section members sent on September 23, 2010]

The ACR Health Care Section met at the Annual Conference in Chicago on September 3. Attending were Dorothy Tarrant, Elizabeth Gould, Janet Schmidt, Jeanne Franklin, Jetta Todaro, Marcia Haber, Michael Nathanson, Norah Mendias, Randi Oibakken, Victoria Menninger, in addition to co-chairs Pat Shanahan and me.  Thanks to all for making it a lively and productive meeting.  For those who couldn’t attend, here’s a summary.

Section Business.  After we all introduced ourselves, Pat and I covered some Section business.  Pat’s very demanding work at Kaiser makes it impossible for her to continue as co-chair of the Section, so she’s stepping down after several years of service.  I'm glad to continue as solo chair for the time being, although eventually we go back to having two co-chairs.  

Marcia Haber graciously volunteered to be Diversity and Equity point person for the Section.  Work on diversity and equity continues to be a high priority for ACR and Marcia’s role will be an important one.

Teleseminar Series.  Pat described our series of teleseminars beginning later in September, which we hope will be a monthly event.  Jetta Todaro suggested we have one or more teleseminars in which the “founders” of an innovative program (such as the conflict resolution/ombuds programs at Bethesda Naval Hospital and Kaiser Permanente, or the medical error disclosure program at the University of Michigan, or programs for mandatory mediation of malpractice cases) can discuss how they got from a promising idea to a successful operation.  Everyone thought that would be interesting.

We’re always looking for more ideas for teleseminar topics or speakers, so please let me know what you think.  Please also let me know if you’d like to help manage the teleseminar series.

Reading Group.  Section members expressed enthusiasm about a possible new activity: a reading group in which participants would all read a book or article relevant to our work (for example, Jerome Groopman’s book “How Doctors Think”) and then have a group discussion by teleconference, on line, or conceivably in person.  The reading group would be analogous to the journal clubs that many research scientists participate in.  We now need a volunteer to help put such a group together.

Future Meetings.  In addition to coming together for teleseminars and reading groups, we agreed to consider having a Section-sponsored one day conference in conjunction with the 2011 ACR Conference in San Diego.

Moving Forward with the Section.  We also talked about how the Section should move forward, focusing on two themes:  sharing and collaboration with others.  Because the field of health care conflict resolution is relatively young, we all face the challenge of persuading people to be open to the substantial contribution we can make as mediators, ombuds, and other conflict resolvers.  We’re a small and diverse section, practicing around the country, so we generally aren’t competitors.  Instead of each of us re-inventing the wheel, we should try to find ways to help one another by sharing our knowledge.  Sharing information about your own health care conflict resolution practice may provide useful ideas to other members about what might work in the areas in which they work.  Identifying your expertise and special experience helps other members who can use you as a resource, as a co-mediator, or as someone to refer a client who needs a conflict resolver with that experience or expertise.  Sharing stories about your cases (especially successful ones) allows other members who are talking to health care organizations or potential clients to supplement their own case studies with many more real-world examples.

Because we’re a small section, it’s also important for us to find ways to collaborate with other ACR sections and with other organizations of professionals in related fields (such as law, nursing, or health care administration).  The collaborations could take the form of joint conferences or other programs or publications, but just being aware of what others are doing (and having them be aware of us) can be helpful.  As a first step in that direction, Marcia Haber offered to be a liaison between the Health Care Section and the Elder Decision-Making and Conflict Resolution Section.  We might also consider collaborating with the Workplace Section, the Ombuds Section, or other ACR groups. Pooling our resources in pursuit of common goals allows us all to make our limited resources go farther.

Sharing and collaboration both require organization and effort, of course.  We need volunteers to help turn those abstract themes into concrete reality.  Some projects for volunteer leadership might be (i) organizing a survey or other communication with Section members asking them to list their professional and other expertise and experience, which could be shared with all members; (ii) organizing a continuing clearinghouse for “war stories” that we can all learn from and use to illustrate how we add value; (iii) identifying other professional or industry organizations with related interests and developing ideas for potential collaborations. These aren’t the only (or the best) possible ideas, so you can also help by volunteering other sharing and collaboration ideas.  Please think about what you’d be interested in and let me know how you’d like to help.

Thanks.

Bill Stempel
bill@wdstempel.com
(203)772-0199