Summer 1997 - Board of Directors' Report

xxAACP Newsletter, Volume 11, Number 3, Summer 1997

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Board of Directors' Report

The AACP Board of Directors met this spring in San Diego at the Marriot Hotel on May 17th and 18th. As usual, the meeting was coincided with the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. The agenda for the meeting was even busier than usual, and was barely packed into the two full days which were available. A significant portion of the meeting was reserved for strategic planning for the future of the organization. A number of practical issues needed consideration, particularly in the area of finances. Support from pharmaceutical companies remained uncertain at the time of our meeting, and the board spent considerable time discussing ways to cut back on expenses until additional revenues could be generated. Although some corporate funding did materialize not long after the meeting, the exercise was an important one, keeping us more cautious in our expectations and strengthening our recognition that budgetary constraints will continue to have an impact on what we can achieve. Other items of interest are discussed below.

Collaboration

There has been growing recognition in this era of scarce resources and powerful external controls on our practice that collaborative approaches and a unified voice are essential for the preservation of high quality services. This is also true in our organization's efforts to advocate for persons who have mental illnesses and the system that serves them. The AACP continues to maintain and develop liaisons with many organizations and the Board was visited during this meeting by Dr. Ezra Griffiths, President of the American Orthopsychiatric Association. He discussed some of the history of Ortho and noted that our organizations had much in common besides a significant number of members. Further discussion focused on ways that our organizations could collaborate in a variety of activities such as scientific program presentations and our efforts to address the needs of underserved and disenfranchised populations.

The AACP also continues to have a very active and productive liaison with the APA through our representative Clif Tennison, MD, finding that our recommendations have often had influence beyond our expectations. The APA is currently considering several of the products developed by the AACP such as LOCUS and the Formulary Guidelines, and there has been a recent agreement for the APA to contribute a column to CP on a regular basis to discuss issues relevant to APA members involved in public sector practice of some kind (see "APA Column," this issue). We will consider identifying an expanded audience for CP withing the APA in the future.

LOCUS

Adult version 1.5, and updated version of the Level of Care Utilization System for Psychiatric and Addiction Services (LOCUS), was approved for distribution by the Board of Directors. Changes were made to clarify distinctions between ratings within several dimensions and to increase the flexibility in the definitions of the Levels of Care. These changes were based on experience gained through providers participating in early field testing. There was general agreement that the AACP would begin to ask recipients of the new version to make a small financial contribution to help cover reproduction and dissemination costs and that with this updated version, formal reliability and validity testing will begin.

Proposals for developing computerized versions of LOCUS were submitted to the Task Force and were considered for further development. A proposal submitted by Deerfield Behavioral Health Network was accepted and it will be developing two products over the next several months. One product will be a simple software package which will be available at a modest price to individuals or small agencies. A systems verson will also be developed and will be capable of creating a variety of reports which will be useful to larger systems who wish to monitor and plan services more efficiently. Plans were also elaborated for the development of a Children and Adolescent LOCUS which will be developed in collaboration with the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. It is hoped that this version will be available for initial distribution sometime this fall. The Board granted the committee chairman, Wesley Sowers, MD, authority to advance the development with the LOCUS Task Force and the AACP President, Charles Huffine, MD.

Committee Activities

Committees have had an increasingly active life outside our actual meeting times. This has been made possible mainly through the use of electronic mail. It has made meaningful participation by non-Board members more practical and possible than anytime in the past. This medium has allowed committees to include the input from emeritus members of the Board as well. Partly in response to these developments, the Editorial Committee was reorganized and renamed the Communications and Publications Committee. Dr. Ken Thompson who has been the Associate Editor of CP will now be designated Webmaster and chair this new committee. He will take primary responsibility of the development of a homepage for the AACP which will be interactive and will enhance our ability to further involve membership in organizational activities and to continue to conduct committee activities via the Internet.

The Health Care Systems Committee has continued to produce a number of major projects and so was reorganized to allow the various subcommittees or task forces more autonomy in organizing and making decisions regarding the development of their activities. A new Task Force was formed to develop guidelines on manpower needs determinations in organized systems of care and will be chaired by Jacqueline Feldman, MD.

The Membership Committee took on a major initiative during this meeting by setting up a booth in the hall for APA exhibitors. The booth was very successful generating several new members on the spot as well as several pledges. The booth also distributed the new version of LOCUS and other AACP products and publications. The booth was considered to be a great success and easily paid for itself. Other AACP committees have continued to be productive as well, and periodic reports on these activities will be featured in the newsletter on an ongoing basis.

Winter Meetings

Meeting, which will be held in Baltimore in early 1998, was discussed. The meeting will be organized by Fred Osher, MD and will focus on public sector managed care and comparisons of various states' experiences to this point. The 1999 Winter Meeting will take place in Alabama and will be organized by Jacqueline Feldman, MD.

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