March 2022 Minutes

MACVPR Business Meeting
Tuesday 3/15/22 9:30 am
Meeting location via Microsoft Teams

In Attendance: Kevin Richman, Marybeth Linthicum, Terri Pilli, Emily Davis, Tina Miller, Terry Mapp, Christine Green, Nicole McDonald, Michael Wainwright, Maria Roomets, Katie Smith, Lakeesha Colbert, Cecily Ludka

Joint Affiliation
Kevin had a meeting with AACVPR to learn about joint affiliation. The benefits of joint affiliation include discounts on conferences/program certification/CCRP exam, and website management. The cost is $230 (July 1-June 30 cycle) and would give members both AACVPR and MACVPR membership. It appears that 67% of affiliate organizations are joint affiliated, mostly on the West Coast and fewer programs in the Midwest. AACVPR cross-checked our membership list and reports that 40% of MACVPR members are also AACVPR members; however, upon review of the list it appeared there were multiple discrepancies so we estimate that number is more in the 30% range.
It was agreed that since many members do not have hospital reimbursement for membership that the cost seems to outweigh the benefits, as we are already working to engage active membership and could lose a lot of members with the higher cost.

Leadership
Thank you to all who completed the survey. Kevin has agreed to fill the President role and had 100% of the vote from the online vote. This means Vice President and the second MAC Liaison position are still open. Katie Smith joined Kevin from Shady Grove as she is interested in learning more about the organization.

Terri Pilli discussed the MAC Liaison role and shared that there are quarterly virtual meetings and a pre-conference meeting at the AACVPR annual conference. Anyone interested in joining Terri in staying informed about legislative updates please reach out to any of the officers or Terri.

MACVPR Event Planning
Last meeting we decided to flip the Spring Conference and Fall Dinner Meeting this year. From the recent survey 74% of participants preferred in-person for both of these events. Kevin is working with vendors to plan a dinner meeting with a speaker for later in the Spring and if anyone has any preferences on location please reach out to him.
Staffing and Retention

Kevin opened a discussion about initiatives for attracting staff and retention plans. Michael Wainwright (SJMC) developed a clinical ladder for EP positions and the nurses in the dept are also included in it and can work toward “senior clinical nurse” position. The EP clinical ladder has EP I, II, III and employees can earn points for teaching, obtaining advanced degrees, providing in-services, etc. Terri reported she has a hard time keeping PT nurse and PRN EP positions filled. Tina Miller reported good retention at Fredrick Memorial Hospital, but also has a tough time keeping PRN positions full as it is often new grads looking for FT. It appeared most folks have student intern from Towson and Salisbury. The question was posed about interns without contracts/affiliations and it appears that everyone that chimed in only utilizes interns where an affiliation between the school and hospital already exists and it is challenging to establish a new contract with a school.

AACVPR Program Certification
Multiple programs are recertifying or in data collection this year. Terri is documenting in EPIC and is concerned that education topics do not flow to each domain of the ITP. Multiple programs are completing ITPs in the vendor software and some are still handwritten. Multiple programs have used vendor ITPs for certification in the past and been successful; however, folks thought AACVPR was taking issue with the staging feature which allows ITPs to be backdated.

Multiple programs are tracking performance measures with a data collection sheet that gets input into a spreadsheet. The addition for next year’s certification includes columns for referral received date, start date, and # of visits completed. I asked about the number of visits because it is worded as “12 visits in 12 weeks” and wanted to confirm if a patient complete 12 visits in 6 weeks and completed program at 6 weeks if they would still be included in the count because AACVPR’s wording was ambiguous in different places and at some points read that they should only be included if they reached 12 weeks. Tina reported she is tracking the visit number and if it is in fewer than 12 weeks that it should still be included.

• Many programs reported redundancies in documentation and processes. Folks are also frustrated by the certification remediation process.
• Tina completes all re-assessment ITPs on the same day to keep with the 30-day compliance.
• No show tracking – some programs are giving a 2-week buffer for a 12-week program. Programs using “medical hold” to take patients off schedule to fill spots for known absences.

The next meeting will be Tuesday June 14th at 9:30 am. Stay tuned for updates for an April or May dinner meeting.

Post-meeting addition:
Treasurers Report
Marybeth reports there is $19,660.84 in the MACVPR account.

Respectfully Submitted by Emily Davis, MACVPR Secretary