A Time to Look Back…and Forward

It’s December—the end of the calendar year and a time of reflection. When I look back on the goals we set for CHEST in 2015, I’m enthusiastic by what I see. We concentrated our efforts around the five main goals from our strategic plan to focus our work. There are many noteworthy accomplishments in each, but I’ll highlight just a few.

Goal 1: CHEST provides the total education solution with content customized to fit individual learner needs and schedules.

We held a very successful annual meeting in Montréal with more than 7,000 total attendees. Throughout the year, we hosted 19 live learning simulation courses in our Innovation, Simulation, and Training Center, reaching over 900 learners. With a full line of courses scheduled for 2016, we’re on track to continue providing quality education next year. People have already begun registering. Check out the calendar at chestnet.org/live-learning.

Goal 2: CHEST has a wide array of new, relevant, and useful guidelines, standards, and complementary programs that guide the profession.

We released eight guidelines and consensus statements in 2015. (Visit journal.publications.chestnet.org/ss/guidelines.aspx for the complete list.) And, following our model to publish updates to topics as new evidence is evaluated, we released seven chapter updates to Diagnosis and Management of Cough: Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Guidelines.

Beginning January 2016, Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific products and services, will publish the journal CHEST, allowing us to deliver research to a larger audience and attract higher profile clinical research from around the world. I’m looking forward to seeing the impact of this new partnership.

Goal 3: CHEST has a meaningful impact on global lung health and patient care.

We continue to host international education events around the world. In 2015, we offered “Best of CHEST” courses in Argentina and Beijing, a board review course in Turkey, simulation training at ERS in Amsterdam, four GAIN Europe courses, and sent CHEST faculty to international education events around the globe. Through disease awareness campaigns, the CHEST Foundation is reaching both patients and clinicians. This past year, the foundation promoted the importance of understanding COPD with both English and Spanish resources. In addition, the foundation teamed up with the Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research to launch “Sarcoidosis: Seek Answers. Inspire Results” and built awareness of lung health and lung cancer at major sporting events.

Goal 4: CHEST optimizes its assets to achieve its mission and ensure execution of its strategic plan.

Our greatest asset is our membership. In May 2015, we updated our membership model to reflect emerging, team-based health-care models and opened membership to the entire chest medicine team. Team-based care is consistent with how health care is practiced, and it’s the way to keep advancing patient care. Under our new model, we’ve gained 90% of US chest medicine fellows-in-training as members and have maintained a 90% membership retention rate.

Another asset, our journal CHEST, continues to be respected around the world. The CHEST Impact Factor rose again to 7.483. CHEST now ranks fifth of 54 journals in the Respiratory Medicine category and second of 27 in the Critical Care category. We continue using our social media outlets to serve as thought leaders in chest medicine. Over the past year, our Twitter followers grew to more than 10,000, and our Facebook fans topped 90,000. These numbers indicate those with interest in chest medicine are taking note and engaging with us.

Goal 5: CHEST has a strong and diverse financial base.

I’m happy to report we had positive financial performances for CHEST, the CHEST Foundation, and CHEST Enterprises. We controlled key expenses throughout the year while achieving the highest-ever revenue on the CHEST Annual Meeting, attracting higher royalties and advertising revenue, and more to improve margins. Moving into 2016, we’re financially stable because of our many valued assets.

CHEST accomplished much more during 2015, and I invite you to read the details in our Advancement and Impact Report, available on chestnet.org under the “About” tab. The report recaps our accomplishments during the presidential term of Dr. Curt Sessler, FCCP, and it represents a culmination of the work of our leaders and members. CHEST has a proud history of dedicated members committed to advancing chest medicine and patient care. Your contributions continue to make our organization a success, and I look forward to beginning another outstanding year in 2016.

As always, feel free to connect with me if you have anything on your mind. I invite you to follow me on Twitter (@PMarkowskiACCP), or look for me at upcoming CHEST events.

It’s December—the end of the calendar year and a time of reflection. When I look back on the goals we set for CHEST in 2015, I’m enthusiastic by what I see. We concentrated our efforts around the five main goals from our strategic plan to focus our work. There are many noteworthy accomplishments in each, but I’ll highlight just a few.

Goal 1: CHEST provides the total education solution with content customized to fit individual learner needs and schedules.

We held a very successful annual meeting in Montréal with more than 7,000 total attendees. Throughout the year, we hosted 19 live learning simulation courses in our Innovation, Simulation, and Training Center, reaching over 900 learners. With a full line of courses scheduled for 2016, we’re on track to continue providing quality education next year. People have already begun registering. Check out the calendar at chestnet.org/live-learning.

Goal 2: CHEST has a wide array of new, relevant, and useful guidelines, standards, and complementary programs that guide the profession.

We released eight guidelines and consensus statements in 2015. (Visit journal.publications.chestnet.org/ss/guidelines.aspx for the complete list.) And, following our model to publish updates to topics as new evidence is evaluated, we released seven chapter updates to Diagnosis and Management of Cough: Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Guidelines.

Beginning January 2016, Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific products and services, will publish the journal CHEST, allowing us to deliver research to a larger audience and attract higher profile clinical research from around the world. I’m looking forward to seeing the impact of this new partnership.

Goal 3: CHEST has a meaningful impact on global lung health and patient care.

We continue to host international education events around the world. In 2015, we offered “Best of CHEST” courses in Argentina and Beijing, a board review course in Turkey, simulation training at ERS in Amsterdam, four GAIN Europe courses, and sent CHEST faculty to international education events around the globe. Through disease awareness campaigns, the CHEST Foundation is reaching both patients and clinicians. This past year, the foundation promoted the importance of understanding COPD with both English and Spanish resources. In addition, the foundation teamed up with the Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research to launch “Sarcoidosis: Seek Answers. Inspire Results” and built awareness of lung health and lung cancer at major sporting events.

Goal 4: CHEST optimizes its assets to achieve its mission and ensure execution of its strategic plan.

Our greatest asset is our membership. In May 2015, we updated our membership model to reflect emerging, team-based health-care models and opened membership to the entire chest medicine team. Team-based care is consistent with how health care is practiced, and it’s the way to keep advancing patient care. Under our new model, we’ve gained 90% of US chest medicine fellows-in-training as members and have maintained a 90% membership retention rate.

Another asset, our journal CHEST, continues to be respected around the world. The CHEST Impact Factor rose again to 7.483. CHEST now ranks fifth of 54 journals in the Respiratory Medicine category and second of 27 in the Critical Care category. We continue using our social media outlets to serve as thought leaders in chest medicine. Over the past year, our Twitter followers grew to more than 10,000, and our Facebook fans topped 90,000. These numbers indicate those with interest in chest medicine are taking note and engaging with us.

Goal 5: CHEST has a strong and diverse financial base.

I’m happy to report we had positive financial performances for CHEST, the CHEST Foundation, and CHEST Enterprises. We controlled key expenses throughout the year while achieving the highest-ever revenue on the CHEST Annual Meeting, attracting higher royalties and advertising revenue, and more to improve margins. Moving into 2016, we’re financially stable because of our many valued assets.

CHEST accomplished much more during 2015, and I invite you to read the details in our Advancement and Impact Report, available on chestnet.org under the “About” tab. The report recaps our accomplishments during the presidential term of Dr. Curt Sessler, FCCP, and it represents a culmination of the work of our leaders and members. CHEST has a proud history of dedicated members committed to advancing chest medicine and patient care. Your contributions continue to make our organization a success, and I look forward to beginning another outstanding year in 2016.

As always, feel free to connect with me if you have anything on your mind. I invite you to follow me on Twitter (@PMarkowskiACCP), or look for me at upcoming CHEST events.

It’s December—the end of the calendar year and a time of reflection. When I look back on the goals we set for CHEST in 2015, I’m enthusiastic by what I see. We concentrated our efforts around the five main goals from our strategic plan to focus our work. There are many noteworthy accomplishments in each, but I’ll highlight just a few.

Goal 1: CHEST provides the total education solution with content customized to fit individual learner needs and schedules.

We held a very successful annual meeting in Montréal with more than 7,000 total attendees. Throughout the year, we hosted 19 live learning simulation courses in our Innovation, Simulation, and Training Center, reaching over 900 learners. With a full line of courses scheduled for 2016, we’re on track to continue providing quality education next year. People have already begun registering. Check out the calendar at chestnet.org/live-learning.

Goal 2: CHEST has a wide array of new, relevant, and useful guidelines, standards, and complementary programs that guide the profession.

We released eight guidelines and consensus statements in 2015. (Visit journal.publications.chestnet.org/ss/guidelines.aspx for the complete list.) And, following our model to publish updates to topics as new evidence is evaluated, we released seven chapter updates to Diagnosis and Management of Cough: Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Guidelines.

Beginning January 2016, Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific products and services, will publish the journal CHEST, allowing us to deliver research to a larger audience and attract higher profile clinical research from around the world. I’m looking forward to seeing the impact of this new partnership.

Goal 3: CHEST has a meaningful impact on global lung health and patient care.

We continue to host international education events around the world. In 2015, we offered “Best of CHEST” courses in Argentina and Beijing, a board review course in Turkey, simulation training at ERS in Amsterdam, four GAIN Europe courses, and sent CHEST faculty to international education events around the globe. Through disease awareness campaigns, the CHEST Foundation is reaching both patients and clinicians. This past year, the foundation promoted the importance of understanding COPD with both English and Spanish resources. In addition, the foundation teamed up with the Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research to launch “Sarcoidosis: Seek Answers. Inspire Results” and built awareness of lung health and lung cancer at major sporting events.

Goal 4: CHEST optimizes its assets to achieve its mission and ensure execution of its strategic plan.

Our greatest asset is our membership. In May 2015, we updated our membership model to reflect emerging, team-based health-care models and opened membership to the entire chest medicine team. Team-based care is consistent with how health care is practiced, and it’s the way to keep advancing patient care. Under our new model, we’ve gained 90% of US chest medicine fellows-in-training as members and have maintained a 90% membership retention rate.

Another asset, our journal CHEST, continues to be respected around the world. The CHEST Impact Factor rose again to 7.483. CHEST now ranks fifth of 54 journals in the Respiratory Medicine category and second of 27 in the Critical Care category. We continue using our social media outlets to serve as thought leaders in chest medicine. Over the past year, our Twitter followers grew to more than 10,000, and our Facebook fans topped 90,000. These numbers indicate those with interest in chest medicine are taking note and engaging with us.

Goal 5: CHEST has a strong and diverse financial base.

I’m happy to report we had positive financial performances for CHEST, the CHEST Foundation, and CHEST Enterprises. We controlled key expenses throughout the year while achieving the highest-ever revenue on the CHEST Annual Meeting, attracting higher royalties and advertising revenue, and more to improve margins. Moving into 2016, we’re financially stable because of our many valued assets.

CHEST accomplished much more during 2015, and I invite you to read the details in our Advancement and Impact Report, available on chestnet.org under the “About” tab. The report recaps our accomplishments during the presidential term of Dr. Curt Sessler, FCCP, and it represents a culmination of the work of our leaders and members. CHEST has a proud history of dedicated members committed to advancing chest medicine and patient care. Your contributions continue to make our organization a success, and I look forward to beginning another outstanding year in 2016.

As always, feel free to connect with me if you have anything on your mind. I invite you to follow me on Twitter (@PMarkowskiACCP), or look for me at upcoming CHEST events.