REPORT OF COUNCIL ON SCIENTIFIC AFFAIRS
CSA Report 2-A-06
Subject: Discharge Committee on Cardiovascular Diseases
Presented by: Leonides Cigarroa Jr., MD, Chair
Referred to: Reference Committee on Financial and Organizational Affairs
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the top two morbidity and mortality causes in Texas, as well as in the United States. For eight years, TMA's Committee on Cardiovascular Diseases has coordinated the HeartCare Partnership Program, a secondary prevention program for CVD. Recently, several factors, including funding concerns, were cause for the committee to recommend to the Council on Scientific Affairs (CSA) that the program be discontinued. The council concurred and notification was made to the Board of Trustees at the Summit 2005 meeting.
Also occurring at the same time was evaluation of the Committee on Cardiovascular Disease as an aspect of the TMA Healthy Vision 2010 campaign. Discussions occurred between the committee chair, council chair, and vice chair, followed by a conference call among the committee chair and a quorum of council members. CSA agreed to recommend to the House of Delegates at TexMed 2006 to discharge the committee, request appointment of a cardiologist to the council, and request members of the committee be an ad hoc CVD group that can be convened should a need occur . Those recommendations were discussed with the TMA Board of Trustees at its Winter Conference 2006 meeting and the board concurred.
Additional rationale for restructuring CVD activities includes:
(1) CVD is a major component of the TMA Healthy Vision 2010 campaign and the TMA president's patient safety program, including the Select Committee on Patient Safety. Such activities offer CVD a much broader audience and attention than a specific committee or council, thereby impacting more TMA members, professional organizations, and others.
(2) Part of the 2010 campaign included the business evaluation of all cost centers to reveal what return-on-investment is to the TMA membership for funds used for activities. With the recent ending of the HeartCare Partnership Program and the TMA Stroke Project, the business evaluation of the funds used to maintain the Committee on Cardiovascular Diseases, and associated staffing, demonstrated a weak return-on-investment.
(3) The committee has been/would continue to compete with other large organizations with similar CVD agendas or under whose purview certain aspects of CVD fall, such as networking and a state strategic plan under the mandated Texas Department of State Health Services' Texas Council on Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke.
(4) TMA will not continue to duplicate the efforts of larger and nationally recognized expert organizations such as the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association. Those organizations are viewed as clinical expert bodies concerning CVD care.
Because timing of the recommendation for discharge is occurring outside the timeframe of the formal sunset review of committees, the council is presenting the recommendation at the TexMed 2006 House of Delegates. Also, the CSA recommendation was vetted with executive staff, other councils, and county medical societies prior to TexMed 2006 as a courtesy to those groups.
Recommendation 1 : Discharge the Committee on Cardiovascular Diseases (The Board of Trustees concurs).
Recommendation 2 : That a cardiologist be appointed to the Council on Scientific Affairs to provide cardiology expertise at the council level.
Recommendation 3 : That TMA Bylaws Chapter 11, Committees, Section 11.50, Standing committees of councils, be amended by deleting Section 11.543, Committee on Cardiovascular Diseases.
TMA House of Delegates: TMA 2006