Of these ideas, two in particular stood out, as I think they would for all of us in healthcare who strive to be data driven, patient centric and best in class at what we do. First, to improve performance, you have to measure it (hence the importance of understanding financial statements, which are the report cards of any organization); and second, to do well in business, you must seek to understand and serve the needs of your customers (who, for us, are primarily our patients, but also our students and our colleagues). In learning to view our work from a business perspective, I made another unexpected, but natural, segue in a career that has turned out quite differently from anything I would have originally imagined.
ACR: Our Promise
As part of the development of our current strategic plan, the ACR put forth for the first time its brand promise: We are here for you, so you can be there for your patients. How will the ACR strive to deliver on this broad promise? As it turns out, in some of the same ways that we as rheumatology professionals strive—by being data driven, customer centric and best in class.
Data Driven
The evolution of ACR as a data-driven organization is rapidly taking place, not only inwardly, but also from our outward-facing activities. Chief among these has been the continued expansion of the RISE registry, which has now enrolled approximately 30% of practicing rheumatologists and collected data on more than 1.6 million unique patients in almost 10 million patient encounters. The power of this tool to advance clinical research, improve patient care and serve our members by tracking and reporting their quality performance is staggering—and we are just getting warmed up.
From the inward perspective, the ACR is committed to implementing data-driven approaches in all that we do through the development of operational and strategic dashboards. These will allow us to measure our progress in reaching our strategic goals and, as we move forward, to validate whether the resources allocated to achieve these objectives are leading us to the desired outcomes.
Customer Centric
Defining the ACR customer is no simple task, especially when one considers that ACR is home to all constituencies residing within the house of rheumatology, from bench to translational researchers, community to academic practitioners, and 22 types of rheumatology professionals within the ARHP. Further complexity enters the mix when we consider our millennials, whose preferences regarding how they acquire knowledge and interact socially open up whole new aspects to our understanding of the needs of our customers. Likewise, our many international colleagues bring yet another dimension to this all.
