Latest updates on ACP's priorities, initiatives

ACP honors outstanding chapter activities with John Tooker Evergreen Awards

ACP announced eight John Tooker Evergreen Awards for 2021. The John Tooker Evergreen Awards Program provides recognition and visibility to Chapters that have successfully implemented programs to increase membership and member engagement, improve communication and chapter management, enhance diversity, and foster careers in internal medicine. The 2021 winners are as follows:

California Southern 3: The DEI Shift podcast

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are more important than ever in the professional and daily activities of health professionals. The DEI Shift podcast grew out of the Medicine in Motion: Advancing Medicine Through Equity symposium SoCal Region 3 hosted in San Diego in November 2019. The Chapter's hope was to extend the important discussions around promoting DEI in medicine and to contribute to building a worldwide community of like-minded listeners. The Chapter leveraged strong connections to established and emerging leaders already invested in DEI principles and utilized a servant-leadership model to assemble a diverse team of students, residents, fellows, and other attending physicians from all over the U.S.

Central America: Healthy Community Program and Campaign Against COVID19 Pandemic

The Healthy Community Program activity in Panama City was held to collect donations (money, food, hygiene products) to distribute baskets to families in need. Because of the pandemic and total quarantine in Panama, many citizens lost their jobs and were in extreme necessity for basic needs. The Chapter used social media and social connections to obtain items and spread the word. Each basket included written advice for the families to commit to a healthier lifestyle and reduce the burden of chronic disease. The Campaign Against COVID19 Pandemic focused on educating the community about an unknown foe. Through a series of social media campaigns and instructional videos, the Chapter encouraged the trust in national health policies such as using face masks, constant hand washing, and managing hygiene in the workplace.

Georgia: I.M. Making a Difference in Georgia—Increased Engagement and Community Service by the Georgia Chapter of the ACP

The I.M. Making a Difference in Georgia: Call to Member Engagement and Volunteer Community Service project utilized ACP resources (e.g., the “I.M. Proud” promotional materials and the “Caring with Compassion” curriculum) and was explicitly designed to promote member engagement, community service, and to recruit new members. The project's overall goals were to involve a large number of Chapter members in community service and to impact parts of the state that are outside of the Chapter's traditional 11-county area. Specific community service projects were designed by the members to help meet particular needs in their communities and encompassed a variety of volunteer activities, including work at free/indigent clinics, food pantries, health fairs, music programs for memory care units, charitable donations, and presentations of health education topics to community groups.

Minnesota: Increasing Diversity in Membership and Leadership through Outreach and Education

The Minnesota Chapter has a strategic priority to increase outreach and education to improve participation and leadership development for diverse members. They defined diversity not only by ethnicity/race, but also by rural/urban practice and international medical graduate training to reflect the increasing global health nature of internal medicine practice in both rural and urban Minnesota. For the past four years as part of their strategic plan, they have targeted outreach for membership and promotion of educational events to IMG-trained internists and to rural internists who were less likely to attend the annual scientific session and meetings in Minneapolis. They also made a conscious decision to include diverse internists as presenters at educational sessions. Having passionate advocates for expanding membership and leadership diversity on the MN-ACP Council is critical to this innovation.

New York: 2020 Virtual Telehealth Lobby Day

Through a new collaboration between the Chapter's Health and Public Policy, Health Information Technology, and Quality and Patient Safety Committees, material was developed quickly to demonstrate the importance of telehealth in maintaining high-quality care for New York's residents and aspects of implementation that are critical components for reaching diverse patient populations. On the day of the Chapter's virtual lobby event, participants met via Zoom for a briefing on talking points and follow-up materials. Following the briefing, all participants contacted their individual New York State Senate and Assembly representatives to discuss telehealth, and designated Chapter representatives met with the Chair of the New York State Senate and Assembly Health Committees and the N.Y. State Department of Health. Numerous follow-up meetings with legislative, state, and executive agency personnel occurred after this event, thereby demonstrating the impact of the event on NYACP's involvement in policy development of state-based telehealth guidance.

Oregon: Growing Advocacy in Oregon

Growing Advocacy in Oregon offers opportunities for health care professionals to learn how to engage in advocacy efforts benefiting patients and internal medicine profession. The Chapter's first Advocacy Day took place in February 2020 and was continued again this year virtually. The event offered a variety of training sessions geared towards learning skills for advocacy efforts, education about ACP policy, and scheduled appointments with state legislators. An additional two to three advocacy modules and sessions are offered through the year for continued learning and engagement. The events help members understand local and national ACP policy and legislative priorities and learn the benefits of belonging to Advocates of Internal Medicine Network, and how to communicate and engage with legislators outside of the state legislative session.

U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, and U.S. Navy: Back to the Future: Re-Tooling Military Medicine for the Virtual Age

The U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, and U.S. Navy Chapters held a joint Tri-Services Chapter Meeting for the first time in 10 years. Plans for a face-to-face meeting in San Antonio were revised in May when it was clear that the COVID-19 pandemic would not be controlled in a manner that would allow a large face-to-face event. The Tri-Services Chapter Meeting Planning Team reviewed the planned two-and-a-half-day agenda (with a procedural skills pre-course) and revised it to a three-day (five hours per day) virtual meeting, keeping all of the elements that are important to their members. Furthermore, for the first time, the Chapters proactively engaged on social media by creating a hashtag and encouraging attendees to live-tweet the meeting using the Chapter accounts.

Washington: Development of a Robust “Council of International Medical Graduates”

Recognizing that nearly 20% of the Washington Chapter membership are members that graduated from schools outside the U.S./Canada, the Chapter formed a Council for International Medical Graduates (IMG). Under the leadership of their Executive Council members and the Chair of the IMG Council, the Chapter started on a series of objectives: Foster a sense of community amongst IMGs through networking events; give back to the communities through volunteer activities focusing on advocacy issues identified by IMG members; and support IMGs in various stages of their career path, including the residency application process, through mentorship and guidance. The Council for IMGs hosted a series of webinars targeting topics of interest to both IMGs (writing letters of reference for applicants to residency) and the general membership (partnered with their Council for Women in Medicine to host a discussion on women physicians adapting to the pandemic).

For more information on a program, contact Emily Seeling at eseeling@acponline.org.

In addition to the John Tooker Evergreen winners, ACP is giving special recognition to 10 Chapters for their effort to implement new programs: Hawaii for Project Aloha, India for ACPCON 2020—Preparedness for the New Normal, Ohio for Ohio Chapter CSM Masks for the Homeless, Maryland for Virtual—Mulholland Mohler Residents Meeting, Missouri for ACP Annual Conference Goes Virtual, South Dakota for A Day In the Life of An Internist: A Path to Increase Students Matching in IM, Texas for Designing and Developing a Statewide Internal Medicine Residency Program Virtual Showcase, Venezuela for #ConcursoACP, Vermont for Green Mountain Medicine, a podcast from the Vermont Chapter of the ACP, and Wisconsin for Innovative Approach to Virtual Annual Scientific Meeting Format.

Watch ACP's new video on diversity, equity, and inclusion

Hear more about how ACP is demonstrating its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in a new video, which details ACP's advocacy, policy efforts, and actions to confront and eliminate racism, racial disparities, discrimination, bias, and inequities.

To watch the video, visit ACP's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion page.

Updated resources now available from the Women's Preventive Services Initiative

The Women's Preventive Services Initiative (WPSI) has released the 2021 Well-Woman Chart, a comprehensive tool for clinicians providing preventive well-woman care that summarizes preventive services recommendations for women from the WPSI, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, and Bright Futures, based on age, health status, and risk factors.

In addition, WPSI has developed a 2021 Coding Guide for WPSI preventive services recommendations to assist clinicians with selecting the correct codes and interacting with third-party payers, including CPT codes, ICD-10 codes, Medicare, and Medicaid resources.

ACP is a partner organization with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists on the WPSI.