AOTA Board of Directors Approves Priorities for FY 2013
At its winter meeting in February, the AOTA Board of Directors held a facilitated meeting to prioritize the organization's Centennial Vision goals for the 2013 fiscal year, which begins July 1, 2012. The priorities are being shared with AOTA leadership and volunteer bodies so the goals align with their projects and activities. Board discussions were guided by a logic model that used the Centennial Vision as the basis for creating activities, strategies, outcomes, and measures that would enhance the profession while building and delivering member value (see FY 2013 Logic Model: Powerful, and FY 2013 Logic Model: Science and Evidence). Discussions were also guided by the results of an environmental scan, which included querying the Board of Directors, members of the Representative Assembly, AOTA staff, and members in the COOL volunteer database. As in 2012, the tenets of the Centennial Vision ranked highest by the Board for FY 2013 are those that foster the development of leaders, increase the influence and recognition of the profession, and ensure that the profession is science driven and evidence based.
The 2013 priorities include continuing to promote leadership opportunities among members; promoting the profession to consumers, physicians, and payers; continuing strong federal and state advocacy to maintain coverage for current and expanding areas of practice, and to influence models of primary care; promoting research by collaborating with the American Occupational Therapy foundation to create and disseminate OT outcomes and evidence; and continuing to reduce faculty shortages by developing programs that encourage faculty to pursue doctoral degrees.
The Association also continues to engage in activities that foster more international collaboration within the global occupational therapy community.
The activities ranked as the most critical for staff, financial and volunteer resource allocation, and attention for FY 2013 are listed below, followed by the measures to be achieved.
- Continue to engage in leadership development initiatives.
- By 2015, 75 to 100 new practitioners who are representative of a diverse profession have undergone leadership training and have assumed active leadership roles.
- By 2015, 60 occupational therapy middle managers representative of a diverse profession and who have organizational influence have participated in the AOTA Leadership Development Program for Managers.
- Promote the profession to consumers and referrers.
- Provide Tip Sheets, Fact Sheets, PowerPoints, Web resources, social media channels, etc. for members and consumers for describing the profession and promoting major initiatives.
- Continue to increase media stories in the top 200 markets, for a total of 20 stories by 2013.
- Target physician organizations, payers, and related groups through advertising, Fact Sheets, social media, and conferences.
- Engage in broad-based advocacy to ensure funding for OT in traditional and emerging areas.
- Medicare continues to cover occupational therapy in all current, new, and emerging settings.
- Medicare adopts occupational therapy–appropriate documentation and outcome measure standards as these are changed by CMS.
- The occupational therapy role in Medicare home health expands by 2014.
- The role of occupational therapy in schools for behavioral and mental health interventions is recognized, including services for children with autism.
- The role of occupational therapy in mental health is promoted in federal legislation and programs.
- Revisions are proposed to the AMA CPT© coding system for optimum recognition of and payment for occupational therapy services.
- Support and enhance state association advocacy activities.
- Collaborate with state associations to advocate for occupational therapy in state legislation, and provide them with tools and guidance to act on health care reform.
- Train and develop members to conduct effective advocacy.
- Board members, other AOTA leaders, and educators participate in Hill visits during Washington area face-to-face meetings.
- Promote the role of occupational therapy in health care reform, especially within primary care.
- Build relationships with physicians and physician groups to influence developing models of primary care.
- Engage members and develop occupational therapy's professional roles in primary care.
- Disseminate existing occupational therapy research relevant to primary care.
- Create a position paper on primary care.
- Engage with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services/Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation around innovation opportunities.
- Create an outcomes database.
- AOTA has a national database for occupational therapy outcomes by 2012.
- Documentation templates are created for the electronic documentation system.
- Promote evidence-based practice.
- Evidence is used to support sound practice and to influence external decision makers.
- Multiple evidence dissemination avenues are evaluated to promote usability by our members.
- Promote alignment of OT research with the AOTA–AOTF Research Agenda.
- Collaborate with AOTF to submit a proposal for an NIA R-13 conference.
- Collaborate with AOTF on initiatives to grow NIH R01 awards to occupational therapy researchers.
- Propose priority research areas needing funding to AOTF on an annual basis.
- Position occupational therapy to be on research teams related to the comparative effectiveness research initiatives of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).
- Monitor and disseminate information on PCORI priorities to the occupational therapy scientific and research communities, and facilitate OT researcher involvement.
- Build research capacity in the profession.
- Continue building relationships with funding agencies with priorities related to the profession.
- Increase the participation and engagement of AOTA researchers to build a community with linkages to AOTA.
- Develop programs to encourage faculty to acquire doctoral degrees.
- Increase number of doctorally prepared occupational therapists and decrease faculty vacancies.
