APA Work Plan to Translate Strategies Into Action

APA’s Board of Trustees, having adopted a set of strategic goals and priorities, is not letting that document gather dust on a shelf. It will soon produce a “work/business plan” that will guide the Trustees as they make decisions to implement the Association’s strategic goals.

At-large Trustee Ann Maloney, M.D., and President-elect Richard Harding, M.D., are chairs of the Work Plan Task Force, which presented a mock outline to the Board in October and will have an outline of the actual work plan for the Trustees to review this month.

The five strategic goals on which APA is concentrating its focus are (1) advocating for patients, (2) advocating for the profession; supporting education, (3) training, and career development, (4) defining and supporting professional values, and (5) enhancing the scientific basis of psychiatric care (Psychiatric News, August 21, 1998). The work plan, Maloney explained to the Board, will be a tool that APA and its leaders can use to reach the strategic goals in a proactive rather than reactive fashion. It also will provide the Association with continuity from year to year as its elected leadership changes, “empowering APA to sustain its forward momentum,” she said. In addition, it can serve as a set of benchmarks by which the Board’s achievements can be measured.

Adopting a work plan and transforming it into a financially based business plan sends a message that the Board “makes systematic policy decisions about how much of our economic and other resources are to be allocated to any given area of [APA] operations,” Maloney noted.

The preliminary outline developed by Maloney, Harding, and task force members envisions that once a work/business plan is in place, “Board members will be able to hone down according to areas of special interest and expertise and focus on high-priority items to ensure that the Trustees will be more fully informed about issues before they take action on them,” Maloney explained in an interview with Psychiatric News.

To demonstrate what a work/business plan in one area crucial to APA’s future would be like, Maloney and Harding developed a mock outline using membership recruitment and retention as a model. Under the goal to “maintain and increase membership, increase demographic stratification, and satisfaction with APA and their chosen profession, they described the following eight objectives and under each indicated one or two possible actions that would move APA toward achieving that objective:

• Ensure that the APA central office and district branch offices are member friendly.

Action 1: Conduct continuing staff training in this area.

Action 2: Develop outcome measures.

• Address the needs and desires of specific subsets of APA membership such as members-in-training, early career psychiatrists, and Lifers.

Action 1: Prioritize which segments of the membership to target first.

Action 2: Develop a master needs assessment plan to be used as a template for all membership segments.

• Streamline membership enrollment, dues billing, and means of dues payment.

Action 1: Initiate installment payment plans.

Action 2: Initiate the capability for electronic transfer payments.

• Be able to communicate with members in a clear, up-to-date, uncomplicated manner that conveys what APA has accomplished and intends to accomplish.

Action 1: Publish this information in Psychiatric News and on APA’s Web site.

• Increase APA’s national visibility.

Action 1: Enhance existing public service announcements and create new ones that educate the public about psychiatry, psychiatrists, and mental health issues.

Action 2: Develop a plan for marketing and distributing these announcements.

• Develop national marketable products that can be distributed to district branches for their use and dissemination; distribute “best practices” products that a particular district branch has developed.

Action 1: Package and disseminate the effective campaign that the Georgia district branch used to learn about the public’s view of scope-of-practice and quality-care issues so that it can be adapted by other district branches.

• Develop a 21st-century communication and information system for APA that has accurate and flexible lists for multiple purposes that can be used for membership and business purposes.

Action 1: Determine whether the existing information systems department can accomplish this goal or APA needs a new system.

Harding and Maloney noted that with APA having undergone a reorganization in the last two years, “This plan is a new way of doing business that ensures our members that their dues and APA’s efforts will be focused on promoting patient care and advocating for the profession.” ▪