PFANEWS
News and Happenings from the Pedorthic Footcare Association
Specific Objective: Continue to retain Bill Applegate
with Bryan Cave as outside federal lobbying counsel by
maintaining an annual agreement with Bill Applegate and
Bryan Cave.
Goal 2: Deliver Impactful Marketing
and Public Relations
Specific Objective: Increase awareness of pedorthics
and pedorthists amongst the general public by:
• Continuing visits with various federal-level decision makers,
including legislators and regulators.
• Working with symbiotic organizations to develop an
awareness of the profession with their membership and the
benefits of cooperation.
• Continuing to enhance the public information section on
PFA’s website.
• Redesigning PFA’s consumer brochure series with a more
modern look and update the content if necessary.
• Seeking opportunities to present pedorthic content at other
national and/or state healthcare conferences and in other
healthcare publications.
• Revisiting the benefits of exhibiting at other healthcare
conferences, whether national or state level events.
• Seeking opportunities to talk about pedorthics to the media.
• Seeking placement of public-interest articles about pedorthics
in national and local publications.
• Targeting VoTech and community college students, as well as
AT and similar students, regarding the benefits of becoming
a career pedorthist or adding the credential to their current
educational track as a beneficial add-on.
Specific Objective: Work to redefine pedorthics
as more than diabetes, the diabetic foot and Medicare. In
messaging, continuing education, branding, etc., embrace the
entire scope of practice, all lower extremity pathologies and
pedorthic modalities by developing a thought piece on all that
pedorthics can be, and work with ABC and BOC to promote
this message.
Specific Objective: Assess the value/benefit of hiring
a communications/marketing professional to address PFA’s
outreach to its various stakeholder groups by determining the
need and benefit of hiring such an individual.
Specific Objective: Assess the benefit of additional
social media channels and the creation of a content strategy by:
• Determining what social media outreach can provide to PFA.
• Comparing other similar organization’s social media outreach
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Pedorthic Footcare Association www.pedorthics.org
program and the time/resource commitment to keep it going.
• Determining the usage of social media by pedorthists and its
viability as a PFA channel of communications.
• Developing a social media content strategy.
Specific Objective: Evaluate PFA’s website to
determine how the organization can better optimize search
engine recognition.
Specific Objective: Evaluate PFA Online and
determine type of content and assess moving toward more of a
member newsletter, while maintaining the “scholarliness” of
Current Pedorthics magazine by conducting a readership survey
to determine how people perceive and use PFA Online versus
Current Pedorthics.
Specific Objective: Conduct a PFA member services/
products/deliverables survey to determine perception of existing
member benefits and what could be added based on member
needs.
Goal 3: Develop Education
and Promote Research
Specific Objective: Charge the education committee
(COPE) to focus on creating methods to drive younger students
into the new pedorthic pre-certification program; promote the
benefits of the increased educational standards to concerned
parties, by:
• Developing an outreach program targeting students in high
school/VoTech programs, community colleges, other related
healthcare programs (AT, PT, etc.).
• Developing a thought piece on the need for increased quality
of pedorthic pre-certification education, with comparisons
to the pains that physical therapy, orthotists, prosthetists
and chiropody went through when they increased their
educational standards. Tie in the meaning of higher
standards for the public and the benefits to be derived by the
professional.
Specific Objective: Deliver continuing education
content that satisfies current credentialed pedorthists by:
• Conducting a survey of pedorthists to determine what they
want to see in continuing education programming.
• Determining the most advantageous delivery method(s):
webinars, in-person regional seminars, symposia, etc.
Specific Objective: Assess partnering with vendors to
develop business ownership/leadership content (business/clinic
owners retreat, for example) by surveying Regular Company