To partner or perish? That is the question

AMA Leader Commentary. By Ronald M. Davis, MD, Nov. 26, 2007.

AMA LEADER COMMENTARY

A few words about current events in medical practice

SEE ARCHIVES

A message to all physicians from AMA President Ronald M. Davis, MD.

Ben Franklin's admonition at the signing of the Declaration of Independence --"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately"-- applies to medicine in the 21st century as well as it did to our founding forefathers.

When we adopted a new AMA logo in 2005, with a modern version of the staff of Aesculapius, we added the slogan, "Together we are stronger." It emphasizes that our profession is much more effective when it speaks with one voice. Unfortunately, medicine is quite splintered, and key health policy decision-makers often hear a cacophony of voices from the physician community.

Building and strengthening partnerships in medicine will help us tear down our Tower of Babel. But creating and sustaining partnerships usually requires a lot of work.

Perhaps a brief review of a few of the more successful partnerships in medicine will remind us why it's worth the effort to work together across specialties, modes of practice and the other "demographics" that often divide us.

The Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement (www.physicianconsortium.org), which is staffed and convened by the AMA, takes the lead in developing, testing and maintaining evidence-based clinical performance measures and measurement resources for physicians. It includes more than 100 national medical specialty and state medical societies, along with other public and private partners. The consortium has developed more than 200 performance measures, addressing 29 clinical topics, and another 34 measures are in development.