Time to Share!

by Rebecca Ferrini, MD, MPH, CMD

All right, we know you are busy, but we also know there is something going on at your facility that is special, unique and worthy to share and be replicated by others.

No time to write a paper, right?  But how do those of us in the trenches share the things we are doing that may change the standard of care in California?

How about developing a poster?

Why should we develop a poster?

  • Chance to highlight your facility publicly,

  • Get recognition for yourself and others on your team who deserve it (people love to have a publication!)

  • One Free admission to the best long-term care conference in California (CALTCM annual meeting April 24 & 25, 2015)

  • The opportunity to  mingle and network with other professionals who may have the solutions to your most pressing problems.

  • Free wine and cheese reception

  • Another entry on your resume to highlight your value to the organization and the field

  • Opportunity to receive fabulous prizes

  • So many great ideas—interesting cases, quality assurance/process improvement (QAPI) projects

  • You can hang it in your lobby!

Reasons NOT to develop a poster and why these reasons should be ignored…

  • “My project isn’t interesting enough”: Believe me, it likely is to be interesting to this audience!—we have had a variety of topics in the past –people in long-term care find things others are doing in long term care relevant and fascinating.

  • Don’t know how to lay it out?  We can help, really, we can!  This can be done by hand, or using technology it can be printed for about $150.

  • Don’t have time?  It is a long time away, the proposal is short, and not much fits on a poster anyway.

  • Don’t know how to collect and display data?  We can help (we really want to!)

  • It is not “scientific enough”:  Yes, it is true there are some posters done by residents and fellows which look as if they might be published in scientific journals with graphs and tables and scholarly results, but then there are posters which celebrate a new program with photos or describe what the facility did to improve quality.  The variety of the posters is what makes this session so interesting.

Please look at the call for posters, think about what you might do and email me or one of the other support people and our CALTCM poster support team can begin to offer you "free consulting" to get your project the publicity it deserves. Click here to visit the Poster Session webpage.

For questions or encouragement, contact Dr. Rebecca Ferrini, MD MPH at [email protected]