To meet the ever-changing scope of practice for rheumatology health professionals, the ARHP has created a new Practice Committee to provide the tools you need to advance your practice.
Based on feedback from the 2009 ARHP membership survey, ARHP leadership recognized a need for addressing practice issues and providing more practice resources. To do this, the leadership split the current Practice and Membership Committee, which had been focusing most of its time on membership recruitment and retention, into a Practice Committee and a Membership and Nominations Committee, with the newly created Practice Committee now focusing solely on practice needs.
During the first Practice Committee meeting in Atlanta in January, committee members generated a tremendous number of new ideas and projects. In addition, the committee’s first priority was to create a committee vision statement to serve as the catalyst for the formation of short- and long-term practice goals. The committee’s vision statement is “to foster collaborative multiprofessional practice throughout the continuum of care and enhance health professionals as first point of contact to meet the needs of the consumer and to advance practice.”
“Attending the first Practice Committee meeting was energizing, given the easy collaboration of the members of diverse disciplines—all with their eyes on the goal of developing practical rheumatologic tools that will assist ARHP members in a meaningful way,” says committee member Susan Richmond, MS, PA-C. “I am confident the committee will work to facilitate the education of our constituents, as we advance the ease of practice by providing practical tools that can be easily accessed for everyday use.”
The short-term ideas and goals generated by the Practice Committee include:
- Developing quick references for nurses;
- The creation of a Meet the Practitioner networking event by state or region across all professions (this is set to launch at the 2010 ACR/ARHP Annual Scientific Meeting); and
- Investigating a pain management initiative that will look at the role of health professionals in nonpharmacologic care for patients with pain, which will be done in tandem with a white paper and resources currently being created by the ACR Task Force on Pain Management.
For long-term goals, the Practice Committee plans to investigate the development of online communications to facilitate electronic networking for practitioners. Additionally, beneficial collaborations will be established with the ARHP Education Committee, Research Committee, and the ACR Committee on Rheumatologic Care to create practice tools and resources that will be accessible to practitioners and consumers on the ACR website.