Membership
Why do you join AUPHA or any other professional organization? Members of AUPHA generally mention the long list of member benefits that we so carefully prepare and distribute. These benefits are real I would argue but are often difficult to quantify precisely. Naturally, the challenge we face as leaders of our organization is to find ways to maximize the value proposition to members or generating the “visible value” as a Board member recently labeled the proposition. This keeps us up at night. AUPHA has earned high marks over the years by providing value and continues to strive for value.
The nature of the world around us makes that proposition a challenge, as we have discussed in many other Blogs. I am not going to revisit healthcare and education changes. I want to talk about two interrelated aspects of our business that, I am learning, cause strain. First, membership in AUPHA is primarily academic organizations. While we have many enthusiastic and valued individual members, our primary constituencies are academic programs or departments. We currently have 126 Graduate Programs as members and 81 Undergraduate Program members. The consequence of organizational membership complicates the membership decision for us. Membership depends upon the value AUPHA provides to the organization and not just value to the individual chair, program director or faculty. As a result, we have such programs as The Journal of Health Administration Education, Benchmarking, UPD, student recruitment, Body of Knowledge, Graham Prize aimed at providing visibility to individual programs or to the discipline as a whole. Further, the value a program derives from AUPHA is often derived from beneficial activities for individual faculty from member programs. AUPHA sponsors the Annual Meeting for example because it provides an effective mechanism for faculty to engage and network with professional colleagues and a low cost mechanism for faculty development. Our Faculty Forums similarly represent an innovative way to engage, network and develop faculty skills and knowledge. AUPHA also supports such programs as David Winston Health Policy Fellowship and Scholarships and Corris Boyd scholarships that benefit students. Attracting quality students and preparing them for healthcare management careers are our major concern as educators but further removed from the membership decision. Bottom line: Many of our benefits accrue to individual faculty although joining is an organizational decision.
The second issue that AUPHA faces is that our members (programs and individuals) face a dizzying array of other associations that vie for membership time, participation and resources. Our member faculty have trained in many different disciplines and many of us are loyal to those core disciplines as well as to health administration. Each individual faculty can be legitimately attracted to one or more of these other organizations as they strive to find niches that attract individual AUPHA member faculty. Fortunately, these organizations do not compete directly for academic membership but often appeal to member professional and/or research interests. Interestingly, many of these are friends and supporters of AUPHA in most respects:
- American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE)
- Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA)
- Medical Group Management Association (MGMA)
- Academy of Management – Healthcare Management Division
- Health Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS)
- Academy Health
- American Public Health Association – Health Administration
- American Hospital Association
- American Medical Association
- American Academy of Dental Practice Administration (AADPA)
- American Academy of Medical Administrators (AAMA)
- American Academy of Podiatric Practice Management (AAPPM)
- American Association of Health Care Administrative Management (AAHAM)
- American Association of Nurse Assessment Coordinators (AANAC)
- American Association of Psychiatric Administrators (AAPA)
- American College of Health Care Administrators (ACHCA)
- American College of Mental Health Administration (ACMHA)
- American Governance & Leadership Group Healthcare Management
- American Healthcare Radiology Administrators (AHRA)
- American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA)
- American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE)
- American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE)
- American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administrators (ASHHRA)
- College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME)
- Emergency Department Practice Management Association (EDPMA)
- Health Care Administrators Association (HCAA)
- National Association of Directors of Nursing Administration in Long Term Care (NADONA/LTC)
- National Association of Health Services Executives (NAHSE)
- Native American Health Management Association (NAHMA)
- Radiology Business Management Association (RBMA)
- National Society of Healthcare Business Consultants
- Healthcare Business Women’s Association
- Professional Association of Health Care Office Management
- Association for Healthcare Administrative Professionals
- American Health Care Association
- American Economic Association
- American Sociology Association
Putting these two considerations together brings us back to AUPHA activities that other professional organizations can’t duplicate and are uniquely beneficial to our members. The Annual Meeting and Network Faculty Forums are clearly those unique, broadly beneficial activities. The Annual Meeting Planning Committee is working to make this June’s meeting in Miami attractive to as wide an audience as possible. The purpose is to attract greater attendance, naturally, and to maximize value for those attending. Please consider participating in any way possible.
We also have noticed that as a group, AUPHA members are engaging in our many Networks more than in the past. Members are beginning to recognize the value of the Faculty Forums. We are reporting traffic in September and October is up almost four times over normal levels. This is good for each of you, your programs and AUPHA. Stays engaged and have a great Thanksgiving.