As an educator with a subspecialization in informatics, I will provide your Board with the relevant expertise it needs to help lead us forward. Data is the cornerstone in providing relevant clinical care. We need data to help us make more informed treatment decisions at the bedside. This same clinical data, when aggregated, can be used to help inform others of the value of emergency medicine. These types of data will allow us to better demonstrate how minor complaints can be true emergencies. We have a duty to educate payers of a patient’s fundamental right to access care.

As a mentor, I’ve been fortunate to have great mentors that have allowed me to grow. A great mentor doesn’t tell you what needs to be done or how to do it; he or she is a good listener. A great mentor asks you questions and poses challenges designed to help you see problems that you may have not identified, to look further ahead than you may be currently looking, or to encourage a different perspective. I will draw upon my unique skills as a research scientist and informatician to help lead your ACEP Board and offer a sounding board to test your ideas and your concerns.

Alison Haddock, MD, FACEP (Texas)

Current Professional Positions: assistant professor of emergency medicine, director of health policy: advocacy, department of emergency medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston
Internships and Residency: emergency medicine residency, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Medical Degree: MD, Cornell Medical College (2007)

Response

The biggest issues that emergency medicine will face in the coming years are policy and reimbursement issues. For the past several years, emergency medicine has faced an increasingly hostile environment in many states due to the actions of insurers, regulators, and legislators. We must be prepared to defend our value as a specialty and our patients’ right to access emergency care. We have been challenged on prudent layperson, out-of-network billing, and our commitment to providing universal access to emergency care. My strongest skills set is in this policy world.

On the national level, I have many years of experience with the Federal Governmental Affairs Committee and am serving my second term on the NEMPAC Board. As of late, we have seen our biggest challenges on the state level, and having spent the past several years serving as chair of the State Legislative/Regulatory Committee, I have been engaged with leaders from states around the country as they have fought to defend their patients’ right to access emergency care. I have developed relationships with Emergency Department Practice Management Association (EDPMA) leaders by serving on the ACEP-EDPMA Joint Task Force. As we continue our legislative and regulatory work around the country, my knowledge and experience can help us gather the data and choose the tactics that we need to protect patients and demonstrate the value of emergency care.