SPM Board Meeting-20110721 1624-1
Thursday, July 21, 2011 12:24 pm EDT
1 Hour 1 Minute

Opening Remarks:

• Journal article publication rates going up as well as our page views as seen in the difference between our top February article and our July article

• Minutes Approved
  • Here is a link to the minutes of the last meeting

Finances:

• Bank balance: $93,801
  • 2Q 2011 – $8268
  • 2Q 2010 – $5397
  • 53% gain in revenues from 2Q 2010.
• Active members: 217 individuals, 21 orgs

Discussion around the position of President Elect:

• The President Elect position was created in the bylaws so they could work alongside the President and learn the culture of our young organization. However, we found it difficult to identify and elect someone to this position. There was some concern around the board pulling in people from the outside and automatically nominating to become President Elect
  • Q: did more people not step up as a result of a timing issue?
    • A: It was difficult to find anyone from the existing board able to take on the additional responsibility
  • Discussion refocused on current election since the bylaws were recently changed to allow for this type of position – if further change is warranted, the board will, again, go through the formal process of changing the bylaws.
  • The nomination committee had a list of 12 people that they narrowed down to people that would make a good fit. While it’s a shorter list than we would have liked we did have multiple applications.
  • Q: bylaws question: how to remove someone if someone isn’t qualified
    • A: majority vote
  • Bios reviewed

Elections:

• Discussion then vote
• President-Elect
  • http://www.surveymonkey.com/—- (vote for one)

• Members-at-Large
  • http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/—— (vote for two)

• Optional – Co-Chair to Replace Alan, whose Feb 2010 “12-week” stint at Co-Chair is truly over.
  • Resolution:  Alan will continue in the role of Past President.

Guidelines:

When Indu joined our board, she wrote in her introductory packet:

I’d like to see SPM become a “seal” of sorts that comes to stand for the goals/values of participatory medicine. Just like the “People Love us on Yelp” sticker signals to me that a restaurant is worthy of my service, I want SPM to find some way to recognize providers, systems etc. that demonstrate the tenets of participatory medicine.

I also think SPM can help fuel the broader consumer movement about access to information/ access to personal health data. Without siphoning off into a micro movement, I’d like to see us work actively to find common ground with Health Data Rights, ONC’s Patient and Family Engagement, (and of course, epatients.net and Health 2.0) and other companies, groups to create an educational campaign telling people HOW to ask for their data/WHAT their resources are etc.

In short – a 2 sided effort: (1) further ignite consumer demand for change toward “participatory medicine” while (2) showcasing/rewarding the providers/companies/systems that are meeting these demands, until there’s system-wide change.

• Board asks series of questions in a preliminary evaluation. Committee answers based on their preliminary research. Plan will continue to evolve.
  • Q: What is the process by which we’ll make this happen?
  • Q: Any of our members can use the seal but how orgs  do this
    • A: an org can self nominate so long as patients have the opportunity to review
  • we don’t want to sell the seal “good house keeping label lost it’s value.” we want to get the word out about Participatory Medicine more than we want to raise money
  • while registration won’t be required we can have controlled distribution of seal / compact / reporting (perhaps QR codes could be employed)
• The next step is to approve a Seal Program beyond the bounds of the society with the Guidelines committee to develop a proposal
• The Guidelines QuickTeam now has such a proposal on the table: 3 simple, measurable commitments to get a seal. Our aim is that 80% of primary care docs will have heard of the seal within 1 year, and that 5,000 will have signed up.
  • We still have a major difference of opinion within our Board about these guidelines, needing vigorous discussion to resolve. – Some feel strongly and rationally that our priority is to build membership, to do that we need to create value, and thus the seal should ONLY be available to members. It’s a small price to pay, and gives people a reason to join. Some believe, on the other hand, that this is more likely to spread like wildfire if it is an effort to get all docs just to agree – and that we will end up with more new members this way.

Corporate Members:

Refining our value proposition: this may blend into the previous conversation on
Guidelines.

Goals:

Members instigated a goals workgroup this year, sensing a lack of direction, to which The Exec Team responded. The exchange raised both practical and structural questions for us to address. It may help to coordinate the Social Outreach committee with Guidelines and Exec committee.