This past November I lost my dad. It is hard to believe he is gone. He’s just always been here…for almost 84 years. Putting batteries in things for me, killing spiders, taking care of my car, and a thousand other things. I have been fortunate enough to be able to spend a lot of time with my parents over the years and especially over the last 10 or so. I lived practically across the street from them and would take my little dog, Romeo, to their house for doggie daycare while I went to work. Later, when I worked from home, we’d have dinner with my folks, meet mom for walks, and dad and I would hit the Dollar Store and Big Lots and finish our day with a trip to Subway.

As I’ve been thinking about dad this last month or so, I also have to be thankful for his curiosity and his willingness to learn new things. At the ripe old age of 75, my dad purchased a laptop. He’d go online and look at the stock market prices, check out the results from the bridge club, and look for other things of interest. He always read the paper and kept up with current events. And continued to play bridge every week.

What a great legacy for your children. Never quit learning, never quit striving to be the best, never quit being fully involved and engaged in life!

As I look forward to 2010 for AHDI-West, I take those lessons with me. We’ve recently engaged an inbound marketing consultant to help us develop our marketing via the internet, Twitter, Facebook and other outlets. There are over 16,000 people on Facebook who mention the words medical transcription in their profiles….our goal is to reach all of them…and all of their friends!

We have hired a bookkeeper to help us with our finances, pay the bills, give us statistics on registrations for webinars, what subjects are the best attended, and are preparing to work with an accounting firm going forward to manage our taxes and corporate financial questions. We hope to begin to explore with AHDI ways to “share staff” for meaningful project development and implementation. Going forward our association needs to become less competitive (i.e., everyone competing for attendees for webinars, meetings, advertising, exhibitors) and start collaborating to accomplish common goals. And we need to continue to explore ways to work smarter and use our finances to help us accomplish our initiatives.

Our members play a huge part in this new approach to association governance. As we have set up the focus groups, we are finding people getting excited about being able to participate without spending all day at a board meeting. They are excited about being able to jump on the computer and contribute, either by joining the discussion, forwarding emails to congressional representatives and regulatory agencies, attending one of our Power of 10 webinars that support AHDI’s lobbying initiatives, and the numerous other opportunities.

We are having successful smaller meetings throughout our region and working on more for 2010. We also have our annual meeting coming up in Phoenix, AZ, April 16-17, 2010, with Advocacy Day Arizona on April 15, 2010. The theme for this meeting is “Phoenix Rising”….and I am so excited about this concept! I hope you will all put it on your calendar now to join us. We will be partnering with AHDI to host one of the Town Hall Meetings that look at what our members want and how we can participate in crafting it.

We are sending representatives to AHDI Advocacy Summit again this year and while there we will participate in the Town Hall Meeting for discussions about what our association will look like in this evolving world of Electronic Healthcare Documentation. As healthcare has moved to center stage in our nation, it has provided us with a huge opportunity to secure our future and ensure the success of our members in this new work environment.

Thank you dad for teaching me to look at the big picture, to not fear new things but to embrace them, to have a desire to stay involved and to have a voice in my own future!