President’s Message

The time for change in medicine has never been more important. To achieve change, physicians must speak with a unified voice while representing the diversity of opinion each specialty brings to the issues of quality improvement and education.

CMSS remains the best forum for finding a common voice amongst specialty providers, and it is critical that we use the organization to improve quality of care and offer new educational formats. It needs to be a trusted source of clinical solutions. We can function as a catalyst, convener, and consensus builder—a way-finder during these challenging times.

To accomplish this goal, we need to establish a culture of trust and risk tolerance. We need to focus on the needs of specialty medicine while engaging relevant stakeholders, including government, regulators, payors, and industry. We need to change at the speed of health system change.

To position ourselves to be the go-to place for all of these important issues, the board will consider these topics at a retreat this summer in August. The plan is to consider and modify our mission statement and focus on quality and education. While advocacy, member services, financial and operational strength will be important elements, our mission will focus on quality and education. During the retreat we propose to establish a “new state” of CMSS and ask what we are willing to commit to in order to accomplish this objective. Depending on the outcome of these fundamental questions, we will propose changes in governance and project focus and look for opportunities to collaborate with other groups that already are well engaged rather than initiate our own programs.

We hope to re-envision the opportunities for quality improvement and education that are possible through CMSS. These ideals have guided CMSS since the beginning but only have been actualized in part. We plan to communicate the organization’s redirection repeatedly after the retreat based on your input.

We look forward to your feedback and excitement in addressing the opportunities to move CMSS forward. Have a great summer, and we will see you at the fall meeting.

David Hoyt, MD