From the Chair

Welcome to the 2019 Democratic Group Practice Section Newsletter.  In recent years, our section has been providing examples of independent democratic groups cooperating in order to share information and techniques to keep each other relevant and successful. Going forward, the idea (and subsequent action) of cooperation amongst our groups remains a key element of our collective future success.  My group has recently benefited from communicating and cooperating with leaders of multiple independent groups.  We have been able to openly ask questions of each other, share key relevant group statistics, examine innovation efforts, and learn from each other’s mistakes and successes.  It’s like an independent group neural network.  If we can learn from each other, we will accelerate our performance and subsequently increase our likelihood of success.   Let’s face it; small groups are at a disadvantage compared to large contract management groups with more resources.  We can start to level the playing field if smaller groups can have the benefit of learning from other like-minded groups.

This year, the Democratic Group Practice Section plans to put out a survey to our membership.  The goal is to collect key group information from a large number of independent emergency medicine groups in the country.  We would like to establish benchmarks that can serve as a guide for all of us.  We are currently creating the survey.  If you or your group has a specific information request that you would like put into the survey, please email the request to Craig Price within two weeks of the publication of this newsletter.  If you know of another group in your region or market that may not be a member of the Section, send us their contact information, and we will try to get the survey to them.  The more groups we have participating, the more valuable the results will be. 

Let’s begin to leverage our collective knowledge.

Rob Thomas, MD