About this newsletter
The ACP Advocate is an e-newsletter, edited by the College's Washington, DC governmental affairs division, created to provide you, our members, with succinct news about public policy issues affecting internal medicine and patient care. To learn more about ACP's Advocacy and to access the ACP Advocate archives, go to www.acponline.org/advocacy. |
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Welcome to The ACP Advocate
Today I’m excited to let you all in on something we’ve been working on since last year. This week a new version of the Advocacy section of the ACP website launched. The redesigned section allows us to better highlight timely information about what’s happening in Washington. We’ve also redesigned the searchable policy library. In addition to improved use of keywords, your search results will now automatically be sorted by date and type of document. Take a look at the article and please visit the site to see what’s new.
Today’s second story is about a new specialty recognition program from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). This program allows specialty and subspecialty practices to formalize their relationship with Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) practices. This is similar to what we first described in the PCMH “neighbor” paper that we released in 2010. We believe this program will be valuable to our subspecialist members. More details about how the program will work are in the article.
Finally, our last article touches on some recent buzz you may have heard about electronic health records (EHR) systems. A couple of recent surveys have found that EHRs may not be living up to their promise, showing declining physician satisfaction and that they are not saving practices money. While these surveys indicate that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done while we’re transitioning to EHR system in order to ensure that they are able to live up to their promise, we believe they have the potential to improve things for patients and physicians.
Lastly, I’m headed to San Francisco next week for Internal Medicine 2013 and I hope to see many of you there. If you are there, please stop by the Washington office booth in the ACP Island of the exhibit hall. I’d love to chat with you about advocacy. Also, if you’re interested in advocacy related sessions at IM please check out the section to the right of this letter for more information about what we’re offering.
For more coverage of what's happening in Washington take a look at my award-winning blog, The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty. You can also follow me on Twitter @BobDohertyACP.
As always, please send your feedback and suggestions on this newsletter to: TheACPAdvocate@acponline.org.
Yours truly,
Bob Doherty
Senior Vice President
Governmental Affairs and Public Policy
American College of Physicians |
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In focus
Don’t Miss the Advocacy Sessions at IM13
If you’ll be in San Francisco, be sure to check out some of the advocacy-related sessions being held. Following are some highlights. On 4/11, 7 to 8 in PN022, GME Reform: What is the Future of GME Financing? Also on 4/11, 11:15 to 12:45 in PN011, The Role of Subspecialists in the Patient-Centered Medical Home. On 4/12, 9:30 to 10:30 in PN023, Health Care Reform: What Now? On 4/13, 8:15 to 9:15 in PN021, 60 Minutes: Special Report on Hot Issues in Health Policy. Also on 4/13, 11:15 to 12:45 in PN035, ACOs and New Payment Models. And, on 4/13, 4 to 5 in AL003, High Value, Cost-Conscious Care. |
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