President's Corner

Greetings from the President’s Corner.

I am both humbled and proud to become President of The Academy of Medicine Cleveland & Northern Ohio (AMCNO). The mission of the AMCNO is to promote the best possible quality of medical practice by physicians in our area, and to provide strong advocacy for the patients whom we serve. Let’s take a look at how we will be addressing this mission in the coming year.

Acquisition of new members and retention of current members will be a primary concern. Group membership by the University Hospital Medical Group and the University Hospital Medical Practice several months ago, in conjunction with group membership by the Cleveland Clinic approximately 2 years ago increases our total membership numbers to more than 5,000. This makes us one of the largest Physician Professional Organizations in the country. New members are the life-blood of our organization. Greater numbers of members adds legitimacy and power to the purpose and activities of our organization. We will continue to recruit individuals and especially encourage group membership. We will periodically survey our members to sense the pulse of our constituents. We will also try to attract new members to seats on the Board of Directors and to committee service. In addition, we will focus on attracting residents and medical students to organized medicine.

The electronic medical record is here to stay, like it or not. The Northeastern Ohio regional Health Information Organization (NEORHIO) is a multi-stakeholder collaborative intended to increase the quality, safety and efficiency of health care in Northeast Ohio via information technology and the secure exchange of health information. Initially this electronic health information will be available to emergency room physicians but will eventually be available to all health care providers. Governor Strickland has formed the Ohio health Information Partnership Advisory Board to assist and oversee development of this system. The Federal Communications Commission has awarded NEORHIO $11.3 million for “Health Net” which provides the hardware to connect 19 rural hospitals caring for patients in 22 counties in Northeast Ohio. We will continue to monitor these developments in communications.

The problem of the medically uninsured is pervasive, affecting 46-47 million citizens in the U.S. One million of these individuals reside in Ohio where 1.3 million (12.3%) of Ohioans live below the Federal Poverty Level. In Cuyahoga County, 132,000 lack health insurance. Last year, $3.6 billion was spent to provide health care for the uninsured. Uncompensated care by physicians for the uninsured amounted to $550 million. Across the state and in other states, stakeholders are participating in sessions to try to design health insurance program templates. The information will be pooled to help design a statewide insurance program for the uninsured. The uninsured themselves have indicated a strong interest in programs that emphasize preventive care, primary care physicians, child care, basic dental and vision coverage and decreased co-payments for those with chronic illnesses. The concept of a Medical Home Care program is attractive, whereby a patient can have many needs filled in one location, that is, see a primary care physician, a pediatrician, and perhaps an obstetrician-gynecologist, as well as meet with a medical social worker, and other ancillary medical personnel. Designs of insurance programs will need to take into account incentives for healthy lifestyles and compliance with treatment programs.

The foregoing presents a brief insight into activities of the AMCNO for the coming year. The quality of medicine in Northern Ohio is excellent. We need to recognize this asset and strive to ever increase the quality of medicine provided to all citizens in this area. 

Raymond J. Scheetz Jr., M.D.
President
AMCNO
2008-2009