Letter From the President
Dear Members,
It was a pleasure to serve as president of this great organization in 2012. This report highlights areas within the ACR that have contributed to our mission of advancing rheumatology. I want to note that these achievements couldn’t have been done without the help of the hundreds of volunteers who provided their time, talents and service.
The ACR continued its public relations campaign, Simple Tasks to effectively communicate and advance the identity of the ACR and to address the question, “what is a rheumatologist,” to internal and external constituencies. Throughout the year, the campaign continued outreach to lawmakers, referring physicians and health professionals, and others who influence the rheumatology community. We continued to utilize the campaign’s main symbol — the bent fork — and developed lapel pins as another tool for the campaign. The bent fork lapel pin has become one of the most noticed and understandable tools in the campaign, successfully providing an impression for the ACR when we are on Capitol Hill, and in my experience,almost everywhere else.
Wearing the bent fork lapel pins helped set our advocates apart from other constituents when we converged on Washington, D.C. for in-person meetings this past September. This year’s Advocates for Arthritis was the largest ever with over 150 in attendance representing 44 states and Puerto Rico. This group of patients, rheumatologists and health professionals spent a day meeting with lawmakers to ensure that good decisions are made by policy makers in areas affecting rheumatology.
For our members in practice, the ACR also made strides outside of its efforts in D.C. We were present at important coding and health policy meetings to ensure that rheumatology issues were appropriately addressed. We also worked on numerous insurance issues affecting rheumatology practices nationwide.
To promote consistently high-quality care for patients, the ACR worked diligently in 2012 on rheumatology criteria, clinical practice guidelines and quality measures. This work included several new publications, published in our journals, Arthritis & Rheumatism and Arthritis Care & Research including guidelines for the management of osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus nephritis and gout; classification criteria for polymyalgia rheumatica and Sjögren's syndrome; recommendations for RA clinical disease activity measures in the clinical setting; and recommendations for the use of musculoskeletal ultrasound in rheumatology practice.
Educational offerings in 2012 provided members with quality-targeted learning opportunities that responded to identified practice gaps and members' educational needs. One new initiative was the launch of the Musculoskeletal Ultrasound Certification in Rheumatology program at the 2012 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. This is a program in which physicians, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners who perform ultrasound as part of their practice in rheumatology can demonstrate competence of this technique through certification to patients, peers, and payors/insurers.
To continue the promotion of clinical and basic research in arthritis and musculoskeletal diseases, the ACR published its first revision of the national research agenda for rheumatology, and continued building relationships with the National Institutes of Health. Meetings between leadership from the ACR and the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and National Institute on Aging were successful and plans are underway to continue outreach throughout 2013.
Finally, recognizing the challenges and opportunities facing academic rheumatology today, the ACR convened a Blue Ribbon panel in 2012 to assess the state of academic rheumatology in the U.S. and make recommendations to ensure its success in the future. As a result of the process undertaken, the panel published a report outlining a new future role for the ACR as a much closer partner of academic divisions of rheumatology.
The ACR made great strides in 2012 and will continue strongly in its efforts to advance rheumatology. Each area in this report shows the ACR's ongoing commitment to address the concerns of the profession, our membership of rheumatologists and rheumatology health professionals, and especially our patients.
On behalf of the leadership and staff, I want to thank you for your membership, support of and your continued participation in the American College of Rheumatology.
Sincerely,
James R. O’Dell, MD