xxAACP Newsletter, Volume 12,
Number 2, Spring 1998
Board of Directors' Report
The Board continues to evolve as well, and a new set of officers
and representatives to the Board were selected just prior to
the meeting and the following results emerged:
President: Charles Huffine, MD
Vice President: Linda Gochfeld, MD
Secretary: Benjamen Crocker, MD
Treasurer: Robert Goisman, MD
Area II Representative: Hunter McQuistion, MD
Area IV Representative: David Giles, MD
Area V Representative: Patricia Carrion, MD
Representatives at Large:
- Russell Lim, MD
- Ken Minkoff, MD
- David Pollack, MD
- Barbara Rohland, MD
- John Haggerty, MD
The new Board Members will take office following
the Spring Membership Meeting in Toronto.
Other highlights of the Board's activities follow:
Membership
Membership has continued to advance and at the time of
the Board meeting had reached 544, almost one hundred
more than this time last year. Plans were made to develop
a booth again this year for the exhibition hall at the
APA meeting in Toronto this spring. Anyone wishing to
volunteer for the booth should contact
Linda Gochfeld, MD, Chairperson of the Membership
Committee about scheduling. (She can be contacted at
gochfeli@umdnj.edu
or 908-549-8400.) Other initiatives were also considered
including reduced cost international memberships and
enhanced efforts to attract members from minority
groups. Group memberships will be considered further
when administrative support is available. Member services
will be enhanced with the addition of the new AACP
website and improved electronic communication made
possible through the development of list serves for
various AACP subgroups.
Experts in Community Psychiatry
A speakers bureau of AACP members has been discussed by
the Board in various forms over the past several years.
At this meeting, plans began to congeal a bit with a
discussion of the possible structure of such a speakers
pool and the identification of specific speakers and
topics that they might address. Many of the speakers
had been identified through an informal survey of members.
The initial idea discussed was providing this service to
training programs interested in speakers for grand
rounds type programming. The hope was that this would be
a format that would provide opportunities for residents
and medical students to obtain exposure to some of the
sexy aspects of this field. Obtaining corporate support
to cover some of the expenses for the speakers would
allow such programs to bring in nationally known experts
in community psychiatry at a more reasonable cost. This
possiblity will be further developed prior to the meeting
in Toronto.
LOCUS Development
The recognition and usage of
LOCUS continues to gain ground across the country
and articles about it have appeared in several
psychiatric newspapers and newsletters. Individual
providers, HMOs, and governmental entities have all
selected LOCUS as their primary placement and
utilization management tool. Having come this far, the
Development and Research Committee has initiated formal
testing of the instrument for reliability and validity
and preliminary results are expected to be available for
the meeting in Toronto. The release of an updated version,
LOCUS 2.0, is also expected at that time. LOCUS 2.0
revisions have focused on improving its utility as an
ongoing utilization management system. The Child and
Adolescent Version (CALOCUS) is approaching pilot form,
and is expected to be released at the Spring Meeting as
well.
Developments of the software systems for LOCUS are also progressing. Deerfield Behavioral Health Network is currently beta site testing LOCUS-PAS 2.0, an expanded version of the software package which will have the capacity to store systems data. The new package is being called "Systems Manager". For ordering information, contact David Barril at 814--456-3783.
Communication
As reported in the last edition of
Community Psychiatrist
(Volume 12, Number 1), official sponsorship of the
Community Mental Health Journal passed to the
AACP starting with the Februray 1998 Edition (34:1),
which displayed our logo and name. The journal will
be a potential source of revenue for our organization
if circulation continues to climb. The growing respect
and relevance of this journal provide some cause for
optimism about future possibilities.
Development of the Web Site continues with the addition of archived editions of Community Psychiatrist and various AACP documents for reference by visitors. Further possibilities continue to be discussed. Discussion groups, committee bulletin boards, and linkages to other related websites are all projects in development. The Board allocated a budget for ongoing maintenance of the site. Visit the site at http://www.communitypsychiatry.org and send your suggestions to Webmaster Ken Thompson at thompsonks@msx.upmc.edu.
Web Editor's Note, June 9, 2002
- View a listing of the members of the
Board of Directors as of Spring 1998.
- View more information on LOCUS.
Back to Spring 1998 Table of Contents