A Productive Year Ahead

The new $60-million Journey to Cure campaign launched in November by the REF is a bold vision and major plan to address expanding rheumatology training and research programs over the next five years. It has great implications for advancing patient care and accelerating research discoveries.

Simple Tasks, our five-year public relations campaign aimed at “key influencers”, has entered its second year. I encourage each of you to participate in this campaign by sharing the campaign white paper with your patients and colleagues. The campaign is also looking for people to join its speaker’s bureau. If you are interested in being part of the group to raise awareness of rheumatology, I encourage you to contact Erin Latimer, public relations director, at [email protected]. I’ll bring you more on Simple Tasks throughout the year.

Many other important initiatives of our challenges for the ACR deserve attention and will be the subjects of future columns. They include, but are not limited to, the ongoing activities of our 2020 Task Force, the increasing burden of maintenance of certification, ICD-10 implementation, forging proactive relationships with insurers, potential name changes for Arthritis & Rheumatism and for the REF, and, of course, one of my personal favorites, the importance of continuing to build the ACR Registry of Rheumatic Diseases.

Stay in Touch this Year

Outside of these columns, I plan to utilize other ACR paths of communication to reach out to the membership in the upcoming year. Did you know that the ACR is active on Twitter and Facebook, and uses YouTube and Flickr? I encourage you to explore these platforms and join the conversation. Not into social media yet? Tweeting and Facebook are not a requirement to establish a dialogue with me or the ACR. You can always e-mail me at [email protected] or call (404) 633-3777 to reach any ACR staff member.

Great hockey players play where the puck will be. Great rheumatologists must do the same.

Not ready to join the discussion but still want to stay informed? The ACR has many publications and online tools to keep you up to date on ACR activities and what is going on outside of the ACR that affects us as rheumatology health professionals. Online publications include the Drug Safety Quarterly, RheumWATCH, and Hotline. “Rheumatology Morning Wire” is delivered via e-mail each weekday. You can also get The Rheumatologist and both the Arthritis & Rheumatism and Arthritis Care & Research journals online at www.rheumatology.org; there is also an “app” for these publications.