 Hi, my name is Gillian Leach from the Australian Association of Practice Management. You're watching Six Degrees of Association with Sarah and Andrew. Welcome to Season 2 of Six Degrees of Association, the world's first web TV show dedicated to the pursuit of association success. My name is Sarah Gonzalez and I'm from Redback Conferencing and I'd like to welcome my co-host, Andrew McCallum, from the Association of Corporate Council Australia. How are you? Good, Sarah, good. We made it back for a second season. I know, and good to be here and good to have the brains trust here alone, I think. Let's face it, we've dropped off a bit of dead wood from the last series, but all go forward from here, I think. Yes, as you can see, our third person, Rob Barnes, has decided to leave due to some other commitments. However, we still haven't... It's his loss. Yeah, it is, let's be honest. It's not the audiences. And we're changing up the logo and we're doing a few things, so stay tuned. We've got some more exciting things coming up, so definitely still going to be an exciting TV series that's going to enlighten us all. Bit more highbrow too, I think. Yeah, I think too. Very cool. I think so. And we are changing it up, like we said. So we're now going to be joined by a special guest from this sector every single fortnight. So today we're actually joined by Julianne Leach from the Australian Association of Practice Management. How are you today? I'm very well. Thank you, Sarah and Andrew. Thank you. Thanks for telling me. Thanks for replacing Rob too. Oh, it's a pleasure. As we said, a more highbrow. Yeah, exactly. Now we're going to get started straight on to one of our most popular segments from last year, and that is Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down. So this time you get to start first because I've got no other choice. How good is that? Thumbs Up is a segment where we actually talk about an association or something in the industry that has really inspired us or got us thinking, wow, that's a good job. Watch your thumbs up. Thanks, Sarah. Well, it's no secret I am a Queenslander at heart, and though I am. Oh, here we go. I have relocated to down south here, but I'm going to go happily refer back to my native state of Queensland and give a big shout out and a thumbs up to Volunteering Queensland. They have a fantastic website. Volunteering Queensland is an organisation that exists for remote volunteering to ensure there's maximum economic benefit from the volunteering sector in Queensland. And you go to their website and it's volunteeringqld.org.au and they've got an amazing array of resources around training volunteers around building a community or a not-for-profit organisation about governance procedures, about how to get recruit, train and really get the most out of volunteers for your organisation. So tremendous website, volunteeringqld.org.au. A big thumbs up to that organisation and the tremendous resource that they've put online. I think because so many associations out there do struggle with the whole volunteering side as well, so definitely one that should be followed. One to look for. But with a positive there's also something. There is a negative. Look, I am a hard marker. But regular readers of the Associations Now blog will be well aware that Joe Rominecki recently left that blog and to take up a position with the Entomological Society of America. They could feature in another section of this show. But for a number of years, I don't know, they represent bugs I guess. But for a number of years Joe wrote a fantastic weekly blog on that around membership. Highlighting great practices in membership, successful membership recruitment. And it was a weekly blog and again not just me but a lot of people in the association space followed it very closely. And though the blog continues albeit with a different author and obviously look, Joe's a good guy. We wish him nothing but the best. Representing America's insects over educating these membership professionals in the association space deserves a reluctant thumbs down from me this week. Each to their own. So now the beauty of this season is I get to do my own thumbs up, thumbs down. So can you introduce me? Sure, Sarah. What's your thumbs up this week? Okay, thanks for asking Andrew. I would like to give a big thumbs up to the International Convention Center in Sydney. So that's just newly opened or reopened, should I say, the old Sydney Convention Center. So it's now the ICC. And I've heard so much feedback from associations looking there, going through, figuring out what they're going to do for their conferences this year. I even know someone who's working there now. And it is state of the art. And I think finally there's this massive venue in Sydney. And Sydney has always been a great venue, especially when it comes to conferences. But now they're somewhere that is just phenomenal. I'm just going to run through some of the stats because it's not just my point of view. It's actually FACS. So here's just some stats with their premier venue that they've opened. So you've got 35,000 square meters of upper and lower decks. So that's actually the size of 26 Olympic pools combined. And that's exhibition space. Yes, exactly. And that's huge. 8,000 seat plenary. So you can have people, especially when you talk about international associations, as well bringing them to Australia. And then you've got this whole international association network, which is just going to benefit us essentially. State of the art technology, of course, because they have to. I've heard the food and the kitchen is going to be phenomenal. And then they've also got a 5,000 square meter open air event deck to have your events outside as well. So it's going to be the largest multi-point boardroom in Australia as well. And I did some research. And in 2015, I didn't actually know that Sydney was named Australia's leading destination for conferences. And that's by the Union of International Association. What year was that? 2015. 2015? Yeah. It's hard to believe, isn't it? Well, Queensland, Melbourne, you know, you keep moving around, but Sydney's a place to be, really. That's my thumbs up. So if you haven't been there, no doubt you're going to be attending a conference there very soon. Or you should definitely check it out. Thumbs down shouldn't be pumping Sydney. Anyway. And thanks there. And your thumbs down for the week. Okay. So you know me and I don't like to get into feminism too much. However, there's always a however. There was a recent article that was released titled All Mailboards Revealed. So this highlighted this and this was based in New Zealand with a lot of their businesses. And I just want to give a thumbs down or maybe just open our eyes to organizations out there that still haven't moved forward. Like we have in some regard, but not enough when it does come to boards. And the Institute of Directors has actually come out and described the latest figures as shocking and clearly not good enough. So there's a bit of thumbs up because they are wanting to do something. And you know, I get that it is historic and you can't just remove board members based on their sex and then invite women to join. But I just think in this day and age we can do better. And I think as a whole, as a community, we need to start talking about it more. And we need to try and find a way to come to some common ground. Like I said, don't remove all the men. I'm not burning my bra or anything like that. I'm just out there to say, you know, let's start talking about it. Let's try to do something about it. But also congratulations to a lot of associations out there who actually do have quite a good split. So there's my thumbs up. Yeah, and a great point on I think the association sector really has the opportunity and often does take a lead in promoting diversity at board level. Take it one step further. Yeah, so a worthy thumbs down from you and a worthy issue to raise. Oh, I'm glad I impressed you. So speaking of thumbs up, let's get back to our special guest for today, Gillian. Welcome. Thank you very much. It's lovely to be here today. Yeah, we know you've been hanging out since last season, but we've finally got you on board. So we just want to have a quick chat with you just based on what you're doing within your organization, what you're planning to do in the future. And I'll hand it over to Andrew. Oh, thanks. Well, let's start off. Tell us a bit about the Australian Association of Practice Management. Well, as the name says, we look after practice managers and the role of practice management in the healthcare industry. So our members are involved in practice management in general practice, dental specialists and allied health professions. We do also have members in community health and hospital clinics. So we cover a fairly wide spectrum, but mainly in the private sector. So the aim is to make practice management very efficient and effective so that the health professionals can look after the patients without worrying about, is the computer working today? Are the staff rosters right? Is the practice clean enough? So our aim is to give our members all the information they need to run the practice efficiently so that their health professionals and medical professionals get on with the job of caring for the patient. Wow. Interesting. And I guess we're still quite early in 2017. So, you know, what are the big issues facing the AAPM for the coming year? What are your members saying? You know, Gillian, this is what we need to get some action? Yeah, there's a huge amount of change going on in the health industry at the moment. It seems to be more than usual, but I think change is always happening to us. I guess the main big things are the Medicare freeze on general practice, Medicare rebate freeze, which means their income is basically static. So, GPs are looking for other ways to raise income, to meet the rising costs, and the practice manager has a huge role in making sure that the business is sustainable so that we can provide health care to the Australian community. The other big issues are changes in government policy. So, we've got a program called Health Care Homes coming out where the funding model for patients with chronic disease will be quite different. So, that's going to need quite a different change in the management setup to look after that funding and to make sure the patients are getting even better care than they were before, which we think is a possibility. Technology is another area, perhaps we'll cover that in more detail later, but it's really, the technological changes are incredible. I think it's just fascinating because I spoke to you last week before the show and I was mentioning how I saw on the project and they were talking about Dr. Google, and I was just thinking that is one element of something that must disrupt your industry or must cause some sort of domino effect or make people think, God, what is happening? So, how is technology actually playing a role within your members, and that's for you, but also within the industry? Well, there's several different levels. So, the technology is impacting on the management of the practice. So, we have appointments online. We have self-service check-in kiosks coming into doctor's practices. So, you don't have to line up in front of the receptionist anymore. Wow. So, we have a lot of e-health records, so practice management software systems to make sure that all the data is kept for each patient in a regulated way. And the My Health Record, which means that information can be shared amongst the whole health care team, the specialists, the hospital, the allied health professionals, as well as the general practice. What we don't have yet and what we're really pushing for is interoperability in the messaging system so that the systems can talk to each other, and that's a real issue that we're pushing for at the moment. So, when the doctor sends a referral to the specialist, they can receive it and read it. They'll get discharged summaries from the hospitals. The medication records can be read by anyone, wherever they are, in Australia, which is really important because we do travel quite a bit in Australia, and you do often need to visit a different doctor. But on the other side, there's really exciting changes. We've got telehealth, where people in remote areas can consult a specialist at some distance. We also have wearable technology, which is coming in. So, blood pressure, blood sugar levels, things like that can be measured. So, it's up to the practice manager to be aware of that and have the systems that can handle the data, set up the systems that will alert the doctor when something's going wrong. So, a huge amount of change in technology and very disruptive. It's all up to you to help your members try and adapt to this. I can imagine 2017 is just going to be crazy. Yes, yes. We've got a big job. So, we make sure that that industry information is getting out to our members on a very regular basis. We send email alerts to them every time we see something new happening in the field. We also have a huge number of resources on our website, so that our members can access those. And we've been working with Redback a lot, to provide regular e-seminars to our members on topical issues. So, once a month, we'll have an e-seminar on an issue that's very important to our members. Great. And it's a great way. They're very busy people, and a lot of them don't live near a city, so it's a really great way of getting our education out nationally to them. Great. And what is your website? It's aapm.org.au. Okay. And I understand you've been with AAPM for coming up towards five years now. Yes. One thing always, not putting a time frame on your tenure there, but what do you see the association being? If you see it and you've talked about the change and the technology, if we go three years or five years ahead, how will AAPM be different in terms of how you're delivering services for your members, how the association is self-destruction? Yes. We're a national organization, and we have one office in Melbourne, which looks after the whole country, and we have a fantastic group of volunteers in each state that help us to really work with the members on the ground level. So communication is essential to us, and I think technology is going to enable that even more. So everyone's using their smartphones now, not just sitting at the computer looking at data. We'll be much more mobile data oriented having resources available in people's hands. We are more of a national organization so that we're providing a unified education platform right across Australia, so everybody has got access to similar resources and similar education opportunities. The other area is that the practice manager job is becoming so much more complex with the constant change. There's something like 254 different pieces of legislation that the practice manager has to be aware of and comply with. So you can see that... The job in itself. Well, yes, that's why the practice manager and the doctor and health professional can't possibly get up with all that if they're going to concentrate on patient care. So our practice managers will need to have a lot higher education and more constant education to keep up with the changes. So it's very important that we are able to supply that. We see the practice manager leading change a lot more in terms of setting up systems that will enable different ways to care for patients. So the remote technology can be used efficiently. People won't possibly have to visit the doctor every time they have something wrong with them. A telephone consultation will possibly suffice. So that will make the doctors a lot more efficient. The use of nurses and allied health in the health care team will increase and it's up to the practice manager to be able to manage that team and make sure that they're all communicating effectively for the benefit of the patient. So much innovation happening. Sounds like you've got a lot on your hands. We have. It sounds like you're across it though, which is good. Thank you. I feel like there's a lot of organizations out there that are just too scared to take that leap and the word technology and innovation can scare so many. So it's actually good to chat with you and you're working with these practice managers to make sure that everything's happening and they are educated. So like you said, the end goal is that patient care, which I think we all like to... we all hope happens. It's a positive for everyone because we all get sick. So just a final question for me. And Andrew mentioned how long you've been within AAPM but you've been in the sector for a while as well. So what do you find most satisfying about working in the association sector and I think given that you've had corporate experience in the past as well, personally, what gets you out of bed every morning with a smile on your face? I'm guessing that you do of course. Of course I do. It's very exciting looking at the changes that are happening in all associations and particularly in healthcare and the importance of the role of the practice manager in the association I'm in now is growing tremendously. So it's very exciting to give our members the resources that are going to empower them to lead their practices and make their groups into teams that can really provide great care for the community. So we have practice managers putting in programs that prevent chronic disease in the community and doing amazing things and that's really exciting. Yeah, definitely. Thank you. It's great to hear a little bit more about your membership base and also what you're doing as an organization to assist them. So thank you. Thank you. We'd like to have you stay because I think you're probably going to be just as excited as we are for the next section. So this is one segment that we've kept and this is Andrew's baby and this is there really is an association for everything and as we discovered last season there really is. So this is where for those newbies out there where Andrew goes out, we send him on a task go and find an obscure association that no one really knows about anywhere in the world, report back to us and drum roll I can't really do the drums but you get it. Thank you for that very worthy introduction and gee it's good to be back. Doubly so for the simply named balloon council. Wow. Who I'm delighted to feature this week. TBC as I like to call them is an organization based in Trenton, New Jersey consisting of retailers, distributors and manufacturers within the balloon sector. The organization dates back to 1990 when they were formed with the very important purpose of educating consumers and regulators about the wonders of foil and latex balloons and their proper handling. So it's not hot air balloon. There's no hot air here Sarah, no. Are you sure? TBC has a serious side because at that time 1990 the association was formed at a time when several state legislatures were considering the implementation of a range of laws that would have severely limited consumer rights to obtain full enjoyment from balloons. So there you have it, TBC. Mind blowing. They do encourage people to get involved in the balloon council to ensure and affirm America's ongoing love affair with balloons. You couldn't make that up. What do you think of that one, Julia? Fascinating. It is, isn't it? So this is a two-minute warning. So ding, ding, spider screes. We don't really have one at the moment but we will get one. So this is where on the show we actually talk about or we're accountable really for what happened last time and what possibly could happen. We encourage you to actually get online on Twitter, hashtag 6DA or send us an email, contact us through whatever channel you can find us, I guess. That's how it works, isn't it? Any good, any bad feedback or if you would like to get involved then please let us know. We don't have any yet except, you know, everyone's talking about how great last year was, their money and art. We do have a sponsor though, Ozae. So this show is now sponsored by them. So welcome aboard, Ozae. Thank you. And anything you need to add to that? We do have one tweet so far from an R Barnes who's said, can I have my show back please? But I will give a shout out to a gentleman, Omus Soka who recently released a book called The Future of Associations. We authors need to stick together. But in all seriousness, it is a great read and I'd highly encourage all associations, professionals to... I'm talking. We really encourage all association professionals to have a look at this book. Really does talk a bit about the future of associations, how to embrace disruption, how to, you know, what will the member of the future need from a professional association. So The Future of Associations, a good read and I apologize for going off script slightly. That's okay. Always next time. That's a wrap for episode one of season two of Six Degrees of Association. I'd like to thank our guest for today, Julianne. Thank you very much for coming in. We also encourage you to join our online community at associations.org and to share your views with the entire association's world. Thank you, Andrew, for joining me once again. Thank you, sir. I think we did all right. Yeah, I think so. We don't need the third wheel anyway, do we? And it was a third wheel. We were carrying it. Yeah, yeah, let's be honest. To all our Six Degrees viewers, thank you very much and remember, too much conversation, I forget the rest of the quote, but... Kills a chat. Kills a chat, starts a chat, something like that. Anyway, keep chatting, keep talking, and we'll see you next time on Six Degrees. Bye for now.