8/28/00 Update

[Guest guest]

Morning everyone,

First of all, we picked up several new members last week-Louis

from NY Hospital, Bunny Gensel from Pittsburgh, & Melisa

Conyer from Vanderbilt. Thanks to Bill Van Vleck, Rusty Ward, & Mia

Bolton-McKelvey for getting those new people on board & welcome to

all!

Next, the Medicare speaker for SLC-a formal ltr of request was

submitted last week & I'm waiting to hear back.

SLC Update-Tx Administrators met by conference call last week &

the suggestions made by this group re: videotaping the proposed

Medicare speaker sessions & making conference materials available for

those who can't attend were discussed. The video taping option is

being looked into-some of the considerations involved include the

cost factor & obtaining releases from the speaker(s). As you all saw

from my post last week, there are leftover materials available from

the Savannah conference-please contact Bill Van Vleck directly if

you'd like one. The decision to make materials from SLC available is

also being looked at.

Pt Access Task Force-As many of you know, the formalization of

the TFC role grew out of the Pt Access Subcommittee which was formed

in 1996 under Tx Administrators. At the last Board mtg in June, the

Board decided to focus even more on non-clinical issues which might

impact a pt access to tx services & appointed a new " Pt Access Task

Force " to continue the work started by the subcommittee. Both myself

& Art , chair of Tx Administrators & a member of this group,

are participating in the Task Force-the first meeting of the Task

Force is 9/27/00.

TFC Association-Mike Chaney, a Summa, & I met via conference

call Friday afternoon to discuss some next steps that need to be

taken w/the Association. As most of you know, Mike had applied for &

rec'd a tax id# for TFCA (thanks again, Mike!)-the next step is to

apply for " tax exempt " status. To do so, however, means listing the

officers of TFCA, which we currently didn't have. As we are actively

soliciting funds from drug companies for TFCA activites (such as

sponsoring lunch in SLC), it is important that we move forward w/this

latest application ASAP, so to avoid further delays, we made a

collective executive decision & decided on the following " interim "

officers:

President: Me (region 1)

VP: a Summa, TransLife/Orlando (region 3)

Sec'y: Amy Kaye, Children's Memorial/Chicago (region 7)

Treasuer: Mike Chaney, Lied Tx Ctr/Omana (region 8)

Again, I want to stress that these are " interim " posts until

formal elections can take place at the mtg in SLC. We will also make

arrangements for proxy votes for those who aren't able to attend in

person (though, obviously, I hope everyone will be there!) There had

also been previous discussions re: regional representations & it was

also decided Friday that the regional reps should not also be

officers in TFCA, so new regional reps will need to be found for each

of our regions listed above. I nominate Buccheri from Hartford

for region 1 & Mike Chaney nominated Sandy Gray for region 8-Amy &

a can speak for their own nominations for their regions. I

believe Region 5 finally settled on Sandy -is this correct?

Please let me know. For region 10, I have Rusty Ward, Sheila Delson,

or Mia Bolton-McKelvey; have you 3 settled on this yet? Again,

please let me know.

Now, as w/everything having to do w/the gov't, the application

for tax-exempt status comes w/a price tag. Though Mike Chaney is

willing to pay the approximate $150 fee himself, I don't think this

is right. Many of you had said previously you had contacts @ some of

the RX companies you could solicite donations from-if you're still

willing, please feel free to contact them. The only request we would

have is to not approach Fujisawa-they are being approached about

sponsorship for Tuesday's lunch & if they come through, that will be

a significant amount of $$ involved.

Speaking of the Tuesday mtg, I hate to nag (though I am SO good

at it!), but there are still quite a few people here who haven't

completed the poll on our webpage @ eGroups re: the Forum. I can't

stress enough how important it is that we have some idea of who will

be there-my current recurring nightmare is that after having put so

much effort into PCW, only 2 people show up :-( Please help stop the

nightmares & fill out the poll!! :-) If you're having trouble

accessing it, let me know directly & I'll be happy to walk you

through, ok?

Ok, I think this is long enough for now. Please respond

w/feedback re: any of the items discussed above.

Thanks everyone,

J. Aguiar

Beth Israel Deaconess, Boston