From the
PRESIDENT
Robert A. Zaring, MD, MMM
GLMS President | [email protected]
THE CONCLUSION OF A HISTORIC YEAR
A
s the curtain begins to close on
2017, I wanted to take some
time to review a few of the ma-
jor endeavors undertaken by
the Greater Louisville Medical
Society (GLMS) over the last year. Three
particularly notable tasks were the move
GLMS headquarters, refocus of the GLMS
Foundation, and reengineering of the Cen-
tralized Application Processing Service
(CAPS) program.
The GLMS headquarters moved from the
Old Medical School Building to the Fleur-
di-Lis building on Main Street in the early
part of the year. The move has been over-
whelmingly successful, and the organization
has been able to make great use of the new
facility, adorned with our newly designed
logo. The new facility is strategically locat-
ed downtown and is near the University
of Louisville Medical School which has
allowed medical students to frequent the
facility using its free Wi-Fi and Quills coffee.
We also hosted the President’s Inauguration
there in late May. I encourage you to visit
GLMS headquarters if you have not seen
the facility yet.
The move to the Fleur-di-Lis building was
instigated by the sale of the Old Medical
School Building. The Old Medical School
Building was essentially operated by the
GLMS Foundation so, with its sale, the focus
of the Foundation had to change. Under
the leadership of Dr. K. Thomas Reichard,
the Foundation has been working hard to
re-evaluate the mission and function of
its various activities. This process is still
underway but the Foundation is set for
several changes. It has already undergone
an evaluation by a Louisville Ignite team,
had strategic planning meetings, sponsored
numerous GLMS premier events, and is in
the process of creating several unique Foun-
dation events focusing on mission work
and education. If you have an interest in
serving on the Board of the Foundation,
please contact Bert Guinn as Dr. Reichard
is always searching for new enthusiastic
board members.
In my first article and inauguration
speech, I discussed the new GLMS logo,
now becoming a well-recognized symbol of
GLMS and its extraordinary brand. I would
like to offer a huge thanks to all those in-
volved in creating it. I also mentioned that
the society heard members’ critiques re-
garding CAPS. We took those complaints
seriously. We at GLMS wanted to come up
with a program that we could all be proud
of and that would ease the burden on phy-
sicians and hospitals. After contemplation,
it was decided to task Jeff Goldberg, MD,
with the challenge of solving this problem.
Dr. Goldberg graciously took on the task as
a volunteer and donated all his hard work
and keen insight to the project and the Lou-
isville medical community. One of his first
activities was to review the current system
and then have a meeting of all the stake-
holders, including several key members of
various hospitals’ leadership. Dr. Goldberg
was able to obtain great buy-in to the proj-
ect and Norton Healthcare even agreed to
donate their process improvement team to
the endeavor.
Dr. Goldberg, along with the process
improvement team from Norton and the
tireless work of GLMS Director of Member
& Client Services Jessica Williams, found
several problems with the current CAPS
system. One of the largest problems was the
use of an outdated software program. The
team researched several different systems
and chose Cactus software. This system is
one of the premiere software programs for
credentialing and offers extensive capabil-
ities that were not present in the previous
software. One of the features I think GLMS
members will greatly appreciate is that it
allows for a paperless system. Cactus, with
its improved functionality, will also free
up more time for GLMS staff to have more
interaction with GLMS members during
their credentialing process. The experience
of reengineering the system has also made
it possible to have greater communication
among the various hospitals and GLMS’
credentialing service, which will speed up
the entire process of credentialing a physi-
cian. The first use of the system occurred in
October and the new service will be known
as MedCentral. I hope you notice a dra-
matic improvement, and we at GLMS look
forward to your feedback as we continue to
improve the service.
The above activities are only a few of the
things that were done this year but I thought
they were particularly notable. I hope you
can tell that GLMS is as energetic and dy-
namic as ever, and we continue to strive for
a Society that truly serves the needs of the
medical community. I have no doubt that
next year will be equally as exciting and as
always, I encourage anyone interested to
get involved and to voice an opinion. The
Society is only as strong as the participation
of its members.
Dr. Zaring is an anatomic and clinical patholo-
gist with Louisville Pathology Associates and
practices at Jewish Hospital.
DECEMBER 2017
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