Membership Development - Blue Print for Component Engagement

AHDI Goal
Bring together the healthcare documentation workforce as AHDI members to be a unified voice for document integrity, patient safety, and build a collaborative professional community.

Rationale
Coming together as a large, well-organized professional association will give healthcare documentation professionals a stronger voice in the healthcare community as an essential contributor in documenting patient encounters accurately, timely, and completely. Growing the association’s membership, recognizing and celebrating their contributions, and retaining members will expand the opportunities for members to build meaningful connections, exchange best practices, and advance their careers.

Component Engagement Objective
The goal of this blue print is to provide components with a comprehensive, but manageable, strategy for executing the association’s goals for growing membership and engaging members to be involved in AHDI. This would involve components serving as membership recruiters and organizations that actively facilitate member engagement at the local level through three key engagement touch points:

1. Organizing: A component firmly committed to creating the infrastructure to recruit and retain members and build a partnership with the national organization on membership initiatives.

   • Coordinator: Appoint a membership coordinator to lead membership recruitment and retention initiatives at the local level. (see Oversight and Management section)
   • Communication: Maintain open dialog with AHDI leaders across the association, the District Director, staff, and specifically the Membership Advisory Workgroup (MAW) to report on initiatives and share best practices.
   • Resources:
     • Component Officers Alliance (COA) Google Group - Communication among component officers, the Board, and staff via email listserv
     • Monthly educational webinars for components - Topics to cover advocacy, association management, credentialing, membership recruitment and retention, budgeting, etc.
     • Leadership Handbook (January 2011)
     • Orientation for component officers (2011)- Recording of the webinar and PowerPoint presentations

    

2. Reaching: A component actively engaged in promoting membership will develop strategies for reaching the following stakeholder groups in your local area:

   • Nonmembers: Outreach to local healthcare facilities, MTSOs, educational institutions, and related healthcare associations to build awareness and increase the visibility of AHDI, and recruit new members into the association in the following categories:
     1. Individual Professionals
     2. Educators
     3. Students
     4. Postgraduates
     5. Companies/Organizations
   • Online: Creating a dynamic online presence to expand the component’s reach and visibility in the healthcare documentation sector.
   • Underserved/Underrepresented Populations: Reaching out to healthcare documentation professionals currently underrepresented at AHDI and embracing diversity in our profession.
   • Resources:
     • Membership benefits highlights - Flyer highlighting member benefits and breakdown of benefits by membership category
     • Membership brochure and application – A promotional piece highlighting the value and benefits of membership.
     • Your Association, Your Benefits - Free webinar for new or prospective members; provides an overview of membership benefits
     • 60 Tips for Member Engagement & Retention
     • Open Letter to MTs - Letter to all Healthcare Documentation professionals highlighting AHDI initiatives, encouraging their participation
     • National Medical Transcriptionist Week
     • Training in social media and creating dynamic online communities - training series for component social media coordinators created by OWNN (Outreach Workgroup for News & Networking)

    

3. Engaging: A component actively working on moving members up the membership engagement pyramid by developing relationships with:

   • Current AHDI Members: Developing innovative ways of engaging and recognizing current members, understanding how we can best serve them as their professional association, and inviting members to get involved as a volunteer in AHDI.
   • Associate Members: Building awareness of the value of AHDI and membership among associate members. Creating compelling reasons for them to upgrade to individual professional membership by including them in blast emails, newsletters, meeting notices, and any and all correspondence that goes out to members in your component area. Make them feel welcomed and a valued part of the component.
   • Component Organizations: Sharing best practices and looking for ways to collaborate with fellow components of AHDI.
   • Resources:
     • Special interest alliances and groups - Networking groups that communicate via listserv and webinar - Educators, Legislative Issues, Managers/QA Supervisors, New Professionals, Visually Impaired Transcriptionists (Open to all AHDI and CDIA members)
     • Integrity Awards program and Hall of Fame - Components select a Member of the Year (Hall of Fame program) who are nominated for the AHDI Member of the Year award
     • Membership benefits highlights
     • E-mentoring Program - Matches students with a practicing MT
     • Volunteer opportunities open to members - Members can complete a volunteer application to join a national committee, workgroup, task team
     • Your Association, Your Benefits - Free webinar for new or prospective members; provides an overview of membership benefits
     • Associate Member Toolkit - help components reach out to Associate and Associate Student members

    

Oversight and Management
Execution of these key strategies would be managed by a membership coordinator at each component with coordinators working under the oversight and management of the District Director, in partnership with AHDI’s Director of Member Relations and the member relations staff. Component membership coordinators would connect to and collaborate with fellow coordinators through participation in the Membership Advisory Workgroup (MAW). These membership coordinators would be extensively trained and resourced by AHDI through the following means:

• Initial training and orientation to be provided by AHDI director and staff
• Resources and tool kits, including handouts, PowerPoint presentations, and talking points for component customization and execution of key touch points outlined above
• Ongoing webinar training and update sessions with MAW and AHDI staff to coordinate membership goals across all organizational levels

Development of Resources
Most of the resources already exist and can be readily wrapped into a resource kit for components to execute this initiative on an ongoing basis.

Affiliate Agreement
It is the recommendation of this committee that components seeking affiliation with AHDI should, at minimum, be required to agree and attest to the following:

Agree to support the association’s goals for membership by executing measurable strategies to (a) reach nonmember healthcare documentation professionals and recruit them into membership and (b) engage, recognize, and retain current AHDI members by empowering everyone involved in the association.