Recognizing the compelling need to adjust to ongoing changes in the nation's health delivery system and to deliver a set of tangible benefits to ACA members, under the leadership of ACA's Board Executive Committee and Dr. Ray Tuck, Chair of ACA's Finance and Strategic Planning committees, ACA has kicked off a comprehensive strategic planning exercise to review all aspects of the structure of operations and benefits.
Dr. David Herd and Dr. Ray Tuck are here to explain how this future-oriented, ongoing planning exercise will bring dynamic and positive change to the ways in which ACA serves its members.
ACA Strategic Planning Looks to the Future
Featured Speaker:
Dr. Tuck is the chairman of ACA’s Strategic Planning Committee and a member of the ACA Board of Governors. A graduate of the National University of Health Sciences, he has practiced in southwest Virginia since graduating in 1997. As a second generation chiropractor, he is very passionate about advancing and integrating chiropractic as a part of the healthcare team through quality care delivery and patient satisfaction. Dr. Tuck has served in multiple leadership roles over the years including past president of the Virginia Chiropractic Association, past executive director and board member of the Association for the History of Chiropractic, and on numerous local non-profit boards. In addition, he has been the recipient of the Blacksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce small business person of the year and the VCA's Chiropractor of the year. Currently, he serves the Virginia Board of Medicine. Locally, he serves on his county Economic Development Authority which helps work with local industry improving the local economy. Tuck is president of Tuck Chiropractic Clinic, which is a group practice with eleven locations throughout southwest Virginia.
Dr. David Herd and Dr. Ray Tuck
Dr. David Herd is the incoming president of ACA and will begin his term in late February 2016. He currently serves on the ACA Board of Governors as vice president of ACA. Dr. Herd has been a leader in his profession for decades. He has been a local chiropractic leader serving as Secretary, Treasurer, Vice President and President of the Rochester District of the New York State Chiropractic Association. He has been a chiropractic educator serving as an Assistant Professor of Chiropractic Studies at New York Chiropractic College. Dr. Herd has been a national chiropractic leader in his position as New York State Delegate for the American Chiropractic Association. He has previously served on the Boards of Directors of the two preeminent chiropractic research organizations -- the Council on Chiropractic Guidelines and Practice Parameters and the Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research. Dr. Herd has been the recipient of numerous professional awards.Dr. Tuck is the chairman of ACA’s Strategic Planning Committee and a member of the ACA Board of Governors. A graduate of the National University of Health Sciences, he has practiced in southwest Virginia since graduating in 1997. As a second generation chiropractor, he is very passionate about advancing and integrating chiropractic as a part of the healthcare team through quality care delivery and patient satisfaction. Dr. Tuck has served in multiple leadership roles over the years including past president of the Virginia Chiropractic Association, past executive director and board member of the Association for the History of Chiropractic, and on numerous local non-profit boards. In addition, he has been the recipient of the Blacksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce small business person of the year and the VCA's Chiropractor of the year. Currently, he serves the Virginia Board of Medicine. Locally, he serves on his county Economic Development Authority which helps work with local industry improving the local economy. Tuck is president of Tuck Chiropractic Clinic, which is a group practice with eleven locations throughout southwest Virginia.
Transcription:
ACA Strategic Planning Looks to the Future
Melanie Cole (Host): Recognizing the compelling need to adjust to ongoing changes in the nation's health delivery system and to deliver a set of tangible benefits to ACA members, ACA has kicked off a comprehensive, strategic planning exercise to review all aspects of the structure of operations and benefits. This future-oriented, ongoing planning exercise will bring dynamic and positive change to the ways in which ACA serves its members. My guests today are Dr. David Herd, he's the incoming president of the ACA and will begin his term in late February 2016; and Dr. Ray Tuck, he's the chairman of ACA's strategic planning committee. Welcome to the show, gentlemen. Dr. Tuck, I'd like to start with you. How is the ACA's strategic planning process helping members and the profession?
Dr. Ray Tuck (Guest): Well, the biggest thing that we're looking at is ensuring that we're staying relevant today, as you said in your introduction. You know, things are changing quickly in health care and so are the needs of our members. So, we just want to make sure that we have a structure that's very relevant to them so that they can have their voices heard and are given resources that are out there that they need so they can exist in today's health care.
Melanie: And, Dr. Herd, how will the ACA mission and strategic plan help consumers and patients?
Dr. David Herd (Guest): We're going to, as part of our strategic plan, improve our communications on all levels within the organization and become a clearinghouse for all the good information that's out there on how chiropractic care can benefit patients and society at large.
Melanie: And how is the ACA, Dr. Herd, reaching out to more younger and health care savvy consumers?
Dr. Herd: We just underwent a major upgrade of our website and we're involved now in all aspects of social media. One of the things that the new website is going to allow us to do is to build online communities and we think this is going to be a very important source of information for new, younger practitioners to share their ideas with us and each other on how to improve chiropractic practice.
Dr. Tuck: I would love to add that one of the things that we wanted to do was to try to make sure that we understood what the needs were. So, we've actually started a process of where we're working with an independent group to reach out to those audiences, and, actually, not just the young ones, but all of them so that we can ensure that we understand what their needs are. We can assume but we don't want to necessarily assume. We want to reach out and have a conversation with our members and ensure we understand what their needs are.
Melanie: How does that strategic planning process relate to this, Dr. Tuck?
Dr. Tuck: Well, that's a great question because, you know, the truth is, we can have the best plan in the world, but if we don't have some clarity and direction, and one of the things that we did as a group is we created something that we're calling "The Pillars of Success." That is ensuring that we're giving appropriate attention to policy, to advocacy, to communication, as Dr. Herd mentioned, and, of course, make sure that we're running our organization in an appropriate manner for that member that's out there.
Melanie: Dr. Tuck, tell us a little bit about the strategic planning process and give us some specifics.
Dr. Tuck: Okay. Well, you know, one of the things when I was asked to chair this committee was, I actually sat down with our executive committee of the ACA which includes the current president, actually, Dr. Herd was on that group, and the current chairman of the board. So, we actually met several times to really kind of ask ourselves "Who do we want to be?" Then, we started adding the board into that conversation and, in fact, we're actually adding the delegates from every state into that conversation as well so that we can make sure that everybody's heard, everybody's a part of the process, and so, when we look at these pillars, we wanted to do activities that are gonna help us support that to become a reality.
Dr. Herd: Could I add something to that, too?
Melanie: Yes, sir.
Dr. Herd: One of the things we did is, we loosely followed some guidelines that were put out by a writer name Patrick Lencioni on organizational health. We began by answering questions about our association, why did we exist? How do we do what we do? And building clarity among a small group of leaders so that we all had the same message. We're expanding that message out. We first took it to the board of governors. They liked what we were doing and now, we're going to the house delegates at the end of February with what is a really robust strategic plan that I think they're going to overwhelmingly support.
Melanie: Dr. Tuck, please give us some of the key components of the plan.
Dr. Tuck: Well, you know, one of the things that we're doing—I mentioned about the communications and the messaging. The other thing we're looking at is, we created, or, we didn't--I wasn't there, obviously--but the ACA was created in 1964, or ‘63, where a group of chiropractors came together with a common goal, but when that was written, that was a different time than it is now, fifty some years later. Technology is different, resources that are available, everything from social media to email to Skype. So, we realized that part of that process is going to be looking at that. Another thing that we want to do is ensure that we're being very focused on our goals. You know, sometimes you can get so broad on your goals or so high level that it's almost impossible to reach them. So, as Dr. Herd mentioned with part of that process where we were following the Patrick Lencioni book, we were looking at is there a way for us to get more focused on our goals so we can increase the chances of us hitting some very specific targets and work together as a collective team as opposed just kind of everybody doing their own thing. That's not really a good description, but, hopefully, that makes sense.
Melanie: Dr. Herd, how is the chiropractic profession changed and how can a revitalized strategic plan help ACA remain relevant and of value to doctors of chiropractic and to the public?
Dr. Herd: The profession's changed greatly because it's becoming a younger profession and there are more and more young practitioners and they're looking for opportunities to participate in some of the new healthcare models that have evolved with national healthcare reform in the last few years. So, the solo practitioner, which was always the model that most chiropractors worked under, is slowly disappearing and we're seeing many more group practices and integrated practices working with large groups of multi-disciplinary doctors. So, it's a very exciting time. There are wonderful opportunities for our profession and we think this strategic initiative that we're undergoing right now is going to help lead the profession into that new marketplace.
Melanie: That was beautifully put, Dr. Herd, thank you so much. And, Dr. Tuck, what would you like members of the chiropractic community to know about the ACA strategic plan?
Dr. Tuck: Well, I think, for me, the main thing that I would want all the member to know, or maybe people thinking about being a member, is that number one, we're trying to stay relevant with the times, and number two, that we're really trying to make sure we're putting a pulse on the member. It's easy to kind of get into a grind of doing things and so, you know, Dr. Herd mentioned in the early part of this interview about communication and that's what I think what we all realize is the primary component there. So, those are two things that I'd really like people to know and to stay contemporary with the times. As Dr. Herd was saying, personally, I'm a part of a group practice and I can tell you that things have changed. As a result of that, we think that there are a lot of other people that would like to understand more about it, as well.
Melanie: Dr. Herd, in just the last few minutes, tell us about some goals that you're going to work toward over the next 12-24 months to help the ACA move towards making the Pillars of Success a reality.
Dr. Herd: We've outlined four thematic goals that are going to help us accomplish the strategic plan, strategic pillars. The first one is Medicare Reform where we're going to try to get full coverage for chiropractic patients under care where, right now, they're quite restricted. We're also undertaking a branding study to take a look at how we're perceived in the marketplace and needs we need to meet for the profession. So, we're going outside professionals to really help identify some of those key parts. We're also looking at reviewing our entire governing structure. As Ray said earlier, the ACA was a unity organization in the beginning and there were a lot of safeguards and checks and balances put in that caused redundancies within our governance which probably aren't appropriate going forward. So, we're going to review those; again, with experts looking to do best practices in the way we govern ourselves. And, finally, we're going to completely realign our resources--both human resources and financial resources to accomplish those goals. So, it's a major re-working of the ACA that we're undertaking.
Melanie: Thank you so much, gentlemen, for being with us today. I applaud all the great work that you're doing, and thanks for being with us. You're listening to ACA Radio and for more information you can go to ACAToday.org. That's ACAToday.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks for listening.
ACA Strategic Planning Looks to the Future
Melanie Cole (Host): Recognizing the compelling need to adjust to ongoing changes in the nation's health delivery system and to deliver a set of tangible benefits to ACA members, ACA has kicked off a comprehensive, strategic planning exercise to review all aspects of the structure of operations and benefits. This future-oriented, ongoing planning exercise will bring dynamic and positive change to the ways in which ACA serves its members. My guests today are Dr. David Herd, he's the incoming president of the ACA and will begin his term in late February 2016; and Dr. Ray Tuck, he's the chairman of ACA's strategic planning committee. Welcome to the show, gentlemen. Dr. Tuck, I'd like to start with you. How is the ACA's strategic planning process helping members and the profession?
Dr. Ray Tuck (Guest): Well, the biggest thing that we're looking at is ensuring that we're staying relevant today, as you said in your introduction. You know, things are changing quickly in health care and so are the needs of our members. So, we just want to make sure that we have a structure that's very relevant to them so that they can have their voices heard and are given resources that are out there that they need so they can exist in today's health care.
Melanie: And, Dr. Herd, how will the ACA mission and strategic plan help consumers and patients?
Dr. David Herd (Guest): We're going to, as part of our strategic plan, improve our communications on all levels within the organization and become a clearinghouse for all the good information that's out there on how chiropractic care can benefit patients and society at large.
Melanie: And how is the ACA, Dr. Herd, reaching out to more younger and health care savvy consumers?
Dr. Herd: We just underwent a major upgrade of our website and we're involved now in all aspects of social media. One of the things that the new website is going to allow us to do is to build online communities and we think this is going to be a very important source of information for new, younger practitioners to share their ideas with us and each other on how to improve chiropractic practice.
Dr. Tuck: I would love to add that one of the things that we wanted to do was to try to make sure that we understood what the needs were. So, we've actually started a process of where we're working with an independent group to reach out to those audiences, and, actually, not just the young ones, but all of them so that we can ensure that we understand what their needs are. We can assume but we don't want to necessarily assume. We want to reach out and have a conversation with our members and ensure we understand what their needs are.
Melanie: How does that strategic planning process relate to this, Dr. Tuck?
Dr. Tuck: Well, that's a great question because, you know, the truth is, we can have the best plan in the world, but if we don't have some clarity and direction, and one of the things that we did as a group is we created something that we're calling "The Pillars of Success." That is ensuring that we're giving appropriate attention to policy, to advocacy, to communication, as Dr. Herd mentioned, and, of course, make sure that we're running our organization in an appropriate manner for that member that's out there.
Melanie: Dr. Tuck, tell us a little bit about the strategic planning process and give us some specifics.
Dr. Tuck: Okay. Well, you know, one of the things when I was asked to chair this committee was, I actually sat down with our executive committee of the ACA which includes the current president, actually, Dr. Herd was on that group, and the current chairman of the board. So, we actually met several times to really kind of ask ourselves "Who do we want to be?" Then, we started adding the board into that conversation and, in fact, we're actually adding the delegates from every state into that conversation as well so that we can make sure that everybody's heard, everybody's a part of the process, and so, when we look at these pillars, we wanted to do activities that are gonna help us support that to become a reality.
Dr. Herd: Could I add something to that, too?
Melanie: Yes, sir.
Dr. Herd: One of the things we did is, we loosely followed some guidelines that were put out by a writer name Patrick Lencioni on organizational health. We began by answering questions about our association, why did we exist? How do we do what we do? And building clarity among a small group of leaders so that we all had the same message. We're expanding that message out. We first took it to the board of governors. They liked what we were doing and now, we're going to the house delegates at the end of February with what is a really robust strategic plan that I think they're going to overwhelmingly support.
Melanie: Dr. Tuck, please give us some of the key components of the plan.
Dr. Tuck: Well, you know, one of the things that we're doing—I mentioned about the communications and the messaging. The other thing we're looking at is, we created, or, we didn't--I wasn't there, obviously--but the ACA was created in 1964, or ‘63, where a group of chiropractors came together with a common goal, but when that was written, that was a different time than it is now, fifty some years later. Technology is different, resources that are available, everything from social media to email to Skype. So, we realized that part of that process is going to be looking at that. Another thing that we want to do is ensure that we're being very focused on our goals. You know, sometimes you can get so broad on your goals or so high level that it's almost impossible to reach them. So, as Dr. Herd mentioned with part of that process where we were following the Patrick Lencioni book, we were looking at is there a way for us to get more focused on our goals so we can increase the chances of us hitting some very specific targets and work together as a collective team as opposed just kind of everybody doing their own thing. That's not really a good description, but, hopefully, that makes sense.
Melanie: Dr. Herd, how is the chiropractic profession changed and how can a revitalized strategic plan help ACA remain relevant and of value to doctors of chiropractic and to the public?
Dr. Herd: The profession's changed greatly because it's becoming a younger profession and there are more and more young practitioners and they're looking for opportunities to participate in some of the new healthcare models that have evolved with national healthcare reform in the last few years. So, the solo practitioner, which was always the model that most chiropractors worked under, is slowly disappearing and we're seeing many more group practices and integrated practices working with large groups of multi-disciplinary doctors. So, it's a very exciting time. There are wonderful opportunities for our profession and we think this strategic initiative that we're undergoing right now is going to help lead the profession into that new marketplace.
Melanie: That was beautifully put, Dr. Herd, thank you so much. And, Dr. Tuck, what would you like members of the chiropractic community to know about the ACA strategic plan?
Dr. Tuck: Well, I think, for me, the main thing that I would want all the member to know, or maybe people thinking about being a member, is that number one, we're trying to stay relevant with the times, and number two, that we're really trying to make sure we're putting a pulse on the member. It's easy to kind of get into a grind of doing things and so, you know, Dr. Herd mentioned in the early part of this interview about communication and that's what I think what we all realize is the primary component there. So, those are two things that I'd really like people to know and to stay contemporary with the times. As Dr. Herd was saying, personally, I'm a part of a group practice and I can tell you that things have changed. As a result of that, we think that there are a lot of other people that would like to understand more about it, as well.
Melanie: Dr. Herd, in just the last few minutes, tell us about some goals that you're going to work toward over the next 12-24 months to help the ACA move towards making the Pillars of Success a reality.
Dr. Herd: We've outlined four thematic goals that are going to help us accomplish the strategic plan, strategic pillars. The first one is Medicare Reform where we're going to try to get full coverage for chiropractic patients under care where, right now, they're quite restricted. We're also undertaking a branding study to take a look at how we're perceived in the marketplace and needs we need to meet for the profession. So, we're going outside professionals to really help identify some of those key parts. We're also looking at reviewing our entire governing structure. As Ray said earlier, the ACA was a unity organization in the beginning and there were a lot of safeguards and checks and balances put in that caused redundancies within our governance which probably aren't appropriate going forward. So, we're going to review those; again, with experts looking to do best practices in the way we govern ourselves. And, finally, we're going to completely realign our resources--both human resources and financial resources to accomplish those goals. So, it's a major re-working of the ACA that we're undertaking.
Melanie: Thank you so much, gentlemen, for being with us today. I applaud all the great work that you're doing, and thanks for being with us. You're listening to ACA Radio and for more information you can go to ACAToday.org. That's ACAToday.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks for listening.