The Power of Partnerships
Frederick P. Ognibene, MD, FCCM
President
Society of Critical Care Medicine
Partnerships have become an important cornerstone of the Society of Critical Care Medicine’s (SCCM) organizational philosophy. In the intensive care unit (ICU), teambased partnerships across all professions and disciplines are vital to quality bedside care. These multiprofessional teams need knowledge, technology and compassion to provide timely, safe, effective and efficient patient-centered care, and the Society is rooted in the diverse constituency and composition of its membership. If one considers partnerships beyond the patient’s bedside, SCCM also is a leader in developing and maintaining robust, productive relationships with other groups and societies.
The Society is proud to have its sister critical care societies as collaborators and partners, including the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), and the American Thoracic Society (ATS). For years, the leaders and chief executive officers of these four societies have met at each other’s annual meetings. These meetings have generated a working list of activities of mutual interest, mostly related to advocacy issues and workforce challenges in the ICU. In 2000, the four societies formed the Critical Care Workforce Partnership, following the publication of the Committee on Manpower for Pulmonary and Critical Care Societies (COMPACCS) article, which dealt with workforce shortages. Since then, other working groups have generated publications and spearheaded activities on Capitol Hill, including a 2006 Health Resources and Services Agency (HRSA) report that reinforced concerns about the intensive care workforce shortages. The internal medicine arms of ACCP, ATS, and SCCM have worked together with the American Board of Internal Medicine on the initiative to recognize critical care as a full subspecialty as well as to develop internal medicine critical care competencies. Organization leaders also have led panel discussions on topics of mutual interest. Environmental threats recently were presented at the AACN meeting, and conflicts of interest and the challenges for professional societies will be presented at the October 2007 ACCP meeting. Over the years, SCCM has built increasingly strong relationships with its sister associations to tackle academic, strategic and political issues. There is strength in numbers, and these groups have many more opportunities to be heard and acknowledged, especially by governing and accrediting bodies, when they work together.
The Society of Critical Care Medicine also has built a fruitful and productive partnership, focused primarily on education and science, with the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM). The ESICM and SCCM, along with other partners, work together on the annual International Consensus Conference (ICC). The most recent ICC meeting addressed acute renal failure, the featured topic in this issue of Critical Connections. The ICC and other jointly sponsored scientific symposia are good mechanisms to highlight the international depth and quality of basic and clinical critical care research. Just like SCCM, ESICM has recognized the need for educational initiatives in acute care and has developed the Patientcentered Acute Care Training (PACT) as a multidisciplinary distance-learning program, for which the Society offers continuing medical education credit for various modules. The Society has worked with ESICM to promote PACT, just as ESICM has worked to promote SCCM’s Fundamental Critical Care Support (FCCS) program.
Many other international societies also work with SCCM to promote and to present FCCS courses collaboratively at annual meetings and other international venues. In addition, the European critical care community has been very proactive in its approach to critical care competencies, as evidenced by the Competency-Based Training in Intensive Care Medicine in Europe (CoBaTrICE) program. In the spirit of partnership, SCCM will host an informational event on CoBaTrICE in November 2007, inviting representatives from sister critical care societies and U.S. medical accrediting bodies. Julian Bion, MD, of the ESICM, will explain what this European competency-based project hopes to accomplish, as many American accrediting bodies are beginning to develop competencies as part of their credentialing and maintenance of certification programs.
Reaching beyond partnerships with its sister societies, SCCM has begun to strengthen its relationship with two non-critical care organizations: the Society for Hospital Medicine (SHM) and the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN). Although these groups represent different constituencies, they both have member practitioners who incorporate clinical critical care in their knowledge and skill sets. Leaders and staff from both organizations have teamed with SCCM volunteer and staff leaders to develop areas of educational exchange. For example, ASPEN was a partner in SCCM’s 6th Summer Conference in Intensive Care Medicine: Nutrition as a Therapeutic Agent to Improve Critical Care Outcomes. ASPEN also is working with SCCM on two clinical practice guidelines. The SHM has been eager to have its members keep abreast of clinical issues in critical care, so information about pertinent educational opportunities, including the Critical Care Academy, has been shared with that constituency. Both relationships are young, robust and growing.
These past, present, and future collaborations reflect the breadth and depth of SCCM’s partnerships. The SCCM leadership, myself included, are firm believers in the powers of these partnerships. We realize that the strengths of SCCM, coupled with those of its collaborating societies in clinical, educational and advocacy arenas, are much greater than if the Society were to operate independently.
