Building Bridges to Achieve the Mission

David Julian Martin, CAE
Diana Hughes, Director of Governance
 

While talking with new members during a recent Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) program, we were asked about the Society’s relationships with other organizations. We began to rattle off the long list of organizations with which we have formal relationships and the numerous projects that were underway through these partnerships. The list included many acronyms and was not cataloged in any single place, and we realized that everyone would benefit from knowing about these important collaborations. By developing collaborative relationships with organizations that share similar interests, the Society promotes its mission to secure the highest quality care for all critically ill and injured patients through the development of programs and projects that support our objectives.

Workforce Issues Addressed with Long-time Partners

The Society has a long-standing relationship with the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) and American Thoracic Society (ATS). Working together, we continue to focus attention on the workforce shortage facing various disciplines to identify solutions.

Projects have included: development of a planning document entitled “Framing Options for Critical Care in the United States”; a white paper sent to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration entitled “The Critical Care Medicine Crisis: Call for Federal Action”; and a unified voice during Critical Care Awareness Month in May 2004 to deliver a common message on these important issues to U.S. legislators. In addition, SCCM serves as the permanent vice-chair of the Critical Care Work Group, which continues to review and address reimbursement issues through policy development with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

The Society also supports the Americans for Nursing Shortage Relief Alliance (ANSR Alliance). The Alliance produced the consensus document “Assuring Quality Health Care for the United States: Supporting Nurse Education and Training,” which outlines consensus issues that must be addressed in any comprehensive effort to lessen the nursing shortage.

AMA Activities

The Society also plays a significant role in working with many organizations within and including the American Medical Association (AMA). Projects have included co-sponsoring a resolution on the U.S. Physician Shortage at the AMA Interim Meeting in December 2003 and an SCCM- sponsored resolution in June 2004 requesting AMA to recognize that severe sepsis is deserving of its own Diagnostic Related Group. The Society also has representatives participating in meetings at the Resource Based Relative Value System (RBRVS) Update Committee (RUC), Current Procedural Terminology Committee (CPT), AMA Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement and the Commission to End Health Care Disparities.

On June 15, 2004 SCCM partnered with the Association of American Medical College’s Center for Workforce Studies and presented information to assist in the development of a core data set of indicators for the shortage or surplus of specialists, development of a common methodology for studying that data, and creation of an agenda to encourage the U.S. Congress to examine the physician workforce.

Internal Medicine

The Society also has a representative participating in the American College of Physicians (ACP) Council of Subspecialties Societies addressing the issues of availability of guidelines, recertification, the Self Evaluation Process (SEP) modules, and copyright issues.

The Society is represented on the American Board of Internal Medicine’s (ABIM) Liaison Committee on Recertification (LCR) to provide input to the ABIM Committee on Recertification as part of its Continuous Professional Development activities. The LCR advises on issues related to the process, content and structure of the recertification program in internal medicine.

Guidelines Development

The implementation of guidelines and practice parameters is most effective when such documents are developed or endorsed by all the organizations whose members may use them. As a consequence, SCCM works with many other organizations to review, endorse, seek endorsement, or actually issue guidelines jointly. Organizations with which SCCM has recently partnered in these activities include the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), American Society of Health-Systems Pharmacists (ASHP), American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), and the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), to name but a few important examples.

Organ Donation, Ethics and JCAHO

The Organ Donation Collaborative is also an important activity supported by SCCM. The Collaborative is intended to dramatically increase access to transplantable organs. Through the Society’s joint efforts within the Collaborative, organ donations have increased by 10% in the 95 Collaborative hospitals — roughly twice the rate of other hospitals. The Society donates booth space at its annual Critical Care Congress to this effort and provides information on the Collaborative in Congress registration packets and on slides between educational sessions. An SCCM representative also participates on the Leadership Coordinating Council of the Collaborative.

Significant efforts related to research ethics occurred during the past year, especially in light of the issues surrounding the ARDSNet (acute respiratory distress syndrome) Trial. The SCCM Council addressed the issue after reviewing a background paper prepared by a combined workgroup from the SCCM Research Committee and Ethics Committee. The Society financially supported and sent representatives to participate in subsequent meetings: “Challenges Facing the Clinical Research Enterprise: The Response of Medical Specialty and Clinical Research Societies,” hosted by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) September 2003 and a consensus conference hosted by ATS in Washington, D.C., “The Ethical Conduct of Clinical Research Involving Critically Ill Subjects; A North American Consensus Conference.”

The Society also enjoys a growing relationship with the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and Joint Commission Resources. This relationship has afforded SCCM representatives access to the Advisory Work Group for the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Measure Sets and also resulted in the joint production of a new publication entitled Improving Care in the ICU.

Worldwide Partnerships

Some may not realize that SCCM is an international organization with members in 75 countries around the world. We therefore participate in a variety of activities and partnerships worldwide. One of SCCM’s longest standing and most productive partnerships has been with the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM). The Society works collaboratively with ESICM on a number of projects from training Fundamental Critical Care Support (FCCS) course instructors in Europe to working together on the distance learning program called PACT (Patient-Centred Acute Care Training), to name just a few joint efforts.

Sepsis is one of the most complex and challenging issues in critical care medicine. The Surviving Sepsis Campaign is a joint effort of SCCM, ESICM and the International Sepsis Forum to facilitate rapid change in the standard of care for the management of sepsis. The Campaign’s goal is to reduce mortality from sepsis by 25% in 5 years.

The Society continues to join forces with the European Respiratory Society (ERS), ESICM, the Société de Réanimation de Langue Française and ATS to bring current clinical information to the international community by holding the International Consensus Conference in Intensive Care Medicine. The Society of Critical Care Medicine hosted the consensus conference on acute pancreatitis in April 2004. “Weaning from Mechanical Ventilation”is the topic of the next Consensus Conference to be hosted by ESICM in Budapest, Hungary,April 28-29, 2005.

The Society is also currently participating with the European Union on Competency Based Training in Intensive Care in Europe (CoBaTrICE). The goal is to develop, through consensus, competencies in intensive care medicine in Europe that will be a useful model for critical care training throughout the world.

In 2000, SCCM entered into partnership with the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies (WFPICCS) to produce Pediatric Critical Care Medicine. This specialty journal, now published bi-monthly, reaches a large international audience and has become the membership journal for several other pediatric associations. Furthermore, many of the journal’s abstracts are published in multiple languages to ensure the broadest possible audience.

The Society continues to create relationships with other international organizations through its affiliate activities. Currently, SCCM enjoys formal affiliate relationships with critical care societies in Argentina, Colombia, Italy, and Mexico. In addition, SCCM recentlyformalized an agreement with the Chinese Society of Critical Care Medicine and participated in its annual conference in September in Kunming, China. Further joint projects of mutual interest are also in the planning stages.

Bridge Building Continues

While space limitations prevent us from reviewing every important organizational relationship enjoyed by SCCM, we also wanted to mention that SCCM has partnership activities with the Coalition to Prevent Deep Vein Thrombosis, Doctors Against Handgun Injury and many others. SCCM has built bridges to a large number of organizations during our 35-year history and is committed to developing relationships whenever and wherever it benefits critically ill and injured patients.