It was a process that took five months, many hours of work, a great deal of collaboration, a raft of agreement, a dash of disagreement, and a marvelous result: the Steering Committee for the Patient Advocacy Credential has been determined.

Hearty congratulations to the 9 members of the Steering Committee:

•   Vicki Breitbart
•   Jari Holland Buck
•   Clinton Crews
•   Maria DeGiglio
•   Io Dolka
•   Beth Droppert
•   Susan Frampton
•   Anne Llewellyn
•   Debra O’Connell

Learn more about each of them here.

The process of selecting this talented group took a long time, but was very fair, equitable and professional.  Truly, it was more like having too many trump cards to choose from, and not about more or less talent.

Some insight:

There were 58 people who applied for the Steering Committee.  Of them, at least 50 were highly qualified.  So the first tier of voting was difficult enough.  Of the 16 in that top group – 14 people submitted their references, and all the reference phone calls were made.  In a way, that made the choice even more difficult because it seemed that each applicant was the perfect candidate – so how to choose?

The only parameter given to the Selection Committee as voters was that we were looking for diversity of talent and interest – attempting to balance the many interests and skills involved in patient advocacy.  We didn’t want the “9” to be too heavily skewed in one direction. And truth be told, the great majority of the 14 came from the education world.  (As it is, 4 of the resulting Steering Committee represent education – almost half.)

For the final ballot, we simply listed the 14 candidates and asked the selection committee to vote for 9.  Then, we set up a tie breaker where each of the voters selected their 3 “must haves.”  Once again, because every applicant was an excellent choice, it was difficult to choose.

From here?  The resulting “9” have their work cut out for them. In the coming months they will have many questions to consider, important answers to determine, and the future of the profession of patient advocacy in their hands.

We hope you will support their efforts.