Important Listserv News!

[Guest guest]

I haven't been very active on the listserv lately (that's what happens when you travel to China for a couple of weeks), but I wanted to point out a couple of milestones for the group.First of all, welcome to wmcdoc, who became the 900th member of the Practice Improvement listserv! Since then, cocoabakes and naniailana became the 901st and 902nd members, so welcome to them too.While it sometimes seems as if there are only 20 or 30 people posting messages to the listserv, these "regulars" are far outnumbered by the lurkers, those who silently read the conversations going on without feeling the need or nerve to comment. You know who you are. ;-)Our little group has come a long way. First started on February 6th, 2003 by Gordon as an open forum to discuss issues and questions triggered by his seminal 2002 article in Family Practice Management journal called "Going Solo: Making the Leap", this listserv has grown in members and number of posts. Like a toddler stretching out his favorite shirt, we've gradually outgrown our current digs here on the Yahoo Groups to the point where it has become a little unwieldy for some folks to find useful information, which is what this group has been all about.The listserv is essentially a single pipeline that flows to everyone, regardless of interest or relevance. As the number of posts have increased, it has become more difficult to find the topics that may interest you. For a while, the search function was broken but now appears to be fixed. Still, there has been an expressed interest in having the messages appear in a multithreaded format that allows users to better find the specific topics that interest them. Over the past several months, the Board of IdealMedicalPractices and others have worked to design and construct a new website that we hope will better serve the needs of the Ideal Medical Practice (IMP) group, also known as the PracticeImprovement1 Yahoo Group. Therefore, I would like to formally announce that the new Ideal Health Network Forum is fully operational and ready for use, and I encourage you all to start posting your questions and comments there. It will eventually replace the Yahoo PracticeImprovement1 Listserv, but for the next few months, both the Listserv and the Forum will be functional and you may post in either location. At a future date, probably around the end of summer, we will "lock" the listserv and no new messages will be allowed to be posted, but you may still view old messages from the archives. So the sooner you move to the new place, the better.Anyone may view the messages in the Public areas, but only Registered Users may post messages. There is no cost to become a Registered User, but you need to register (duh) with a valid e-mail address and give a coherent reason why you want to join. You do not need to be in the healthcare field but we just need to know that you are a real person and not a spambot. If you leave it blank or just type something meaningless like "Please let me join", you will be sent a message asking for better reasons why you should be allowed to join. Those who become a paying member of IdealMedicalPractices will have Member status and will be allowed to access special Members Only areas. To log in or register for the new Forum, go to http://idealhealthnetwork.org/user. Your old Yahoo usernames and passwords will not automatically be transferred over so you need to re-register. You may reuse your current username (if it is available), or choose a new one. Please let us know if you have any problems logging in or posting to the new Forum.Hope to see you all on the new Forum soon! SetoAdmin