What does it take for members to become involved with the Community Health Planning and Policy Development (CHPPD) Section? I set out to answer this question last November upon starting my two-year term as Section chair. 

The Section has just completed a process to identify the Section vision and re-worked the mission statement. We had pre-existing committees: Membership (including Newsletter), Policy, Program, and Student. I thought that if we identified issues that members care about as well as members who agreed to take an initiative on these issues, it would get members engaged. The Section members identified the issues of Health Reform, Public Health Information Technology, and Built Communities, and some members agreed to take a lead.

Due to space limitations, I will focus on strategic issues because they are a new initiative. What I learned from working with strategic issues surprised me. 

Strategic Issues - Results

• About 30 professionals participated in the Role of Community in Health Reform webinar and audio conference organized in February 2009.
• CHPPD member Tammy Pilisuk, along with Medical Care Section’s Dr. Ellen Shaffer, submitted a proposed policy, “Public Health’s Critical Role in Health Reform.” The paper has received conditional approval from the Joint Policy Council and is being revised as suggested by members.
• CHPPD Section members Dr. Charles Magruder, Dr. Azzie Young, and I will be presenting on Public Health Perspective on Electronic Medical Records: Real World Experiences at the local, state and federal levels at an invited session organized by the Health Informatics Information Technology (HIIT) Special Primary Interest Group (SPIG).
• The Built Communities Strategic Team of Dr. Amy Carroll-Scott and Dr. Christiaan Morssink is writing a white paper.

 Lessons Learned

• Identify an issue, at least two members, and tangible opportunities. We identified issues based on the fact that at least two members would work on each issue. For Health Reform, the tangible opportunities identified were a proposed policy paper and Webinar; for Public Health Information Technology, the opportunity of an invited session from HIIT was presented; and for Built Communities, the team has proposed writing a “white paper.”
• Teams are small and free-flowing. Two or more people make a team. Which members choose to be on a team is related to the specific project and content, and linked to a need for learning.
• Watch for opportunities. Tammy sent me a copy of an unsolicited copy of a  health reform paper she had worked on for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and seemed excited to take the lead in writing the paper; I sent the HIIT invitation to Dr. Charley Magruder, and he thought it was an exciting opportunity; I had read a paper on Community Health Centers and their work with Electronic Health Records (EHR), and asked Dr. Azzie Young if she could speak to the Mattapan Community Health Center’s experience with EHRs, and she said she could. In each instance, it was connecting a pre-defined interest with an opportunity and a professional.
• Dare to take initiative. I do not profess to be an expert on health care, as my work focuses on prevention. Working with Tammy and Ellen on the Health Reform paper helped me understand that I did not need to be an expert. It is part of our lives. 

Recently, I was listening to Jane McGonigal, an alternative games developer with the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Calif., on National Public Radio. She says games make people happy and she's come up with four elements she believes we all need to be happy: satisfying work, the experience of being good at something, time spent with people we like, and the chance to be a part of something bigger. Games, she says, do all of these things. "Games work better than most of reality because they give us clear instructions. We know exactly what we're supposed to do," Dr. McGonigal says. "They give us better feedback; you can't be good at something unless you're getting feedback ... Gamers don't mind criticism."

That’s what we need to remember to get members involved in CHPPD, APHA, and public health in general. Give as clear instructions as possible. Two members from different sides of the globe talking about a common issue is involvement. Hunger for learning about another’s perspective or about an issue is more valuable in getting members engaged than expertise. Sometimes we think that the guidelines are clear, and yet no one seems to want to play. Ask if the instructions are clear, and if necessary, tweak the guidelines so people will play. What if they still don’t? Then play something else. Isn’t that what we tell our children?

 

By Priti Irani, CHPPD Section Chair, pri01@health.state.ny.us