MINUTES - ASA BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING - 2-23-08
The ASA Board of Directors met on 2-23-08 at the Westin Hotel in Chicago, Illinois. Currently ASA is conducting an ongoing reorganization that includes committee structure to hopefully improve representation. Among new initiatives, a project has been approved for a branding project at a cost of $291,000 to better educate the public about anesthesiologists and their value. The firm FD was chosen to represent ASA in the project. At the meeting, FD presented six months of their plan to the Board.
A survey is currently being undertaken by NIOSH, a governmental agency, to evaluate health in operating rooms. Although ASA had considered not participating in the study, reevaluation determined participation would b reasonable if ASA participants were allowed to see the raw data instead of just the summary reported by the agency.
ASA voted against a recommendation by the Society for Pediatric Anesthesiology for subspecialty certification in pediatric anesthesiology. It was felt that such certification would divide the specialty of Anesthesiology and impose logistic and financial restraints on members who practice pediatric anesthesia without certification. In particular, anesthesiologists who have not completed pediatric board examinations may be paid less and scrutinized more by the legal profession than those who have completed pediatric boards.
An Antitrust Compliance Statement was drafted for ASA for use at meetings and with publications to be compliant with current best practice criteria for corporate entities to avoid the penalties of state and federal antitrust laws. ASA is the process of copyrighting ASA materials and documents.
Administrative procedures continue to be defined for the Expert Witness Program including a recommendation that the Judicial Council publish not only the names of individuals who may have been sanctioned by ASA, but also a summary of the reasons on the Website and in the Newsletter. One complaint record and proceedings have occurred to date, with a current update of the proceedings underway.
ASA continues its Organizational Improvement Initiative (OII), a 2-3 year sustained improvement effort to enable ASA to supply improved services to its members and meet current and future challenges. ASA’s strategic plan, annual meeting, duties of the officers and staff policies have been updated. Other documents, such as the Administrative Procedure Manual, are also being updated.
The updated Statement of the Anesthesia Care Team was approved for publication at the 2004 Annual Meeting. A section defining “qualified anesthesia personnel” was omitted due to intense debate. The Committee on Anesthesia Care Team represented a carefully thought out and written document that was sent back to the Committee to approve final changes. This is important due to our position with nurse anesthetists in our practices, as well as payment by insurers and Medicare.
Practice parameters currently under development include a task force for a practice parameter addressing the prevention, diagnosis and management of infections and bleeding complications associated with neuraxial blockade and the Practice Advisory for Magnetic Resonance Imaging Related to Anesthetic Practice. Parameters currently under revision are Chronic Pain Management and Transesophageal Echocardiography Guidelines. Updates due for consideration include Cancer Pain and Preoperative Fasting.
The Task force on Smoking Cessation has also formulated a plan for preoperative smoking cessation that can be instituted by anesthesiologists for patients who are seen preoperatively. This plan is currently being finalized and made available on the Website. $33,300 will be added to the Committee on Geriatric Anesthesia’s budget for a booklet written by the committee for use by physicians entitled Considerations for Anesthesiologists: what you should know about your elderly patients.
A budget in excess of $28 M was approved for 2008. Total expenses for 2007 were $25,949,639. Costs include plans that are currently being completed for the 2008 Annual Meeting to be held in Orlando, Florida on October 18-22, 2008. By then, the new organizational structure for ASA should be complete with personnel hired to fill the positions.
Although this BOD meeting was not the most exciting we’ve had, many housekeeping and organizational duties were addressed. The national elections and state elections will determine a lot of ASA’s direction in the future. ASA continues to fight for a fair playing field for our university anesthesiologists compared with other university physicians, with payment for rooms with procedures performed by residents. For example: currently, when two rooms that are paid by Medicare are conducted by residents and supervised by an attending anesthesiologist, only one is paid. In addition, other insurance payors threaten the same payment plan.
if you have any questions or suggestions I would be glad to address them. We’ll be looking forward to the national meeting in October.
Respectfully submitted,
Linda F. Lucas, M.D.
ASA District Director for the KSA