Your reinvented medical society goes horizontal

Tuesday, November 01, 2016 12:05 AM

Plug in and play with your peers in the real world of health care policy

by Alfred Gilchrist, CEO, Colorado Medical Society

We are entering the second year of a 21st-century-designed medical society that ties your streamlined board of directors with grassroots in pretty much real time. As one of your board members said, we have evolved from an emeritus to a millennial model for CMS members – homegrown and locally owned. And just in time to mobilize the policies that we will put into play with state legislators and our congressional delegation.

Take free, professionally designed skills-based courses for leadership development. It is the duty and privilege of a forward-thinking medical society to develop and offer skills-based courses for physician leadership. The Physicians Foundation awarded CMS a $150,000 grant to administer the Physician Leadership Skills Series (PLSS) over two years. The first program in this members-only series will be held in early 2017.

Run for office, recruit a colleague to run, and vote for your CMS officers in our new all-member elections. Gone is the delegated approach to electing leaders through a House of Delegates where a limited number of physicians got to choose who leads your medical society. CMS officers are now truly homegrown. We have an all-member election system for CMS president-elect and AMA delegates and alternates. If you are interested in leading at a high level or if you know a colleague who would liketo sit in that chair, check out our call for nominations for next year’s elections, open until Jan. 31, 2017.

Know your CMS board member. They will soon be online with our powerful new tool, Central Line. Central Line tees up the kinds of conversations that ultimately translate into advocacy with legislators, regulators and all the players in the public affairs space. Central Line is our first-in-the-nation web-based virtual policy platform designed for CMS to connect you and your board member before and after votes on policy. You can share opinions, ideas, speeches and concerns with colleagues on policy proposals they submit to CMS that are of interest to you, and you can submit policy proposals to CMS 24 hours a day, seven days a week instead of once a year at the annual meeting. This revolutionary application provides you with an unparalleled voice in CMS with just a few clicks of a mouse – all from the convenience of your desktop, laptop or mobile device – and makes CMS a more grassroots responsive and effective organization. Registration will open Nov. 18.

Take those connections from virtual to real life. We can come to you for an in-person, hometown regional forum. There is no better way to let CMS know what matters to your practice than to meet face-to-face in your community. CMS leaders are ready to travel to your community for a homegrown meeting open to all physicians. Six regional forums were held in 2016 in La Plata, Montrose, Mesa, Chafee, Larimer and Boulder counties. Email president@cms.org to schedule a 2017 regional forum today.

Join a committee or work group. Our new streamlined structure allows you to find volunteer opportunities that fit your schedule. CMS has transformed most of its committees and work groups away from long-term commitments to targeted and productive short-term experiences based on urgency and relevance. This year several hundred physicians who had never previously participated with the medical society served on various work groups and committees that met both virtually and in person. Opportunities to participate can be found by emailing
president@cms.org.

Make plans to attend our totally redesigned annual meeting featuring great speakers, free CME, free childcare, and activities for the whole family. Your colleagues have transformed the annual meeting into a forum for collegiality, information sharing, great speakers certified for free CME credit, and brand new family-friendly activities like free licensed childcare and free local activities for everyone. An Annual Meeting Re-Engineering Work Group of physicians used the results of a member-wide survey to design programs and extracurricular activities for the 2016 meeting and will continue their great work for the 2017 meeting in September at the Beaver Run Resort in Breckenridge.

The Colorado Medical Society unites us at a time when powerful divisive forces would like to subdivide medicine into convenient packages. By intent and design, CMS will keep the multifaceted profession of medicine working together, communicating and bringing the ideas that result into the Colorado health care system and public policy space.