 Each year, members in the "active" or professional category elect members for AHCJ's board of directors. Six of the 12 director positions come up for election each year for two-year terms. Incumbent board members are allowed to run for re-election. Potential board members need to declare candidacy by 5 p.m. (ET) on July 6. See who has declared their candidacy.
| | AHCJ has taken key elements from the federal Nursing Home Compare database and put them into a more manageable format in Excel spreadsheets. This allows members to quickly analyze the most recent Nursing Home Compare data for local stories about ratings or violations. For additional help for members, AHCJ created a tip sheet about summarizing spreadsheets to create categories and counts. AHCJ has made it easy to see when the data was last updated, what the star rating of a facility is, identifies serious violations and whether a violation was cited during a routine survey or after a complaint. Remember, AHCJ also offers ready-to-use Hospital Compare data to help you evaluate how your local hospitals stack up against their competitors, others in your state and hospitals across the country. | | Over the next 20 years, the 65-plus population is projected to grow four to six times as fast as the population as a whole. Attend the Aging in the 21st Century workshop in Miami to find out what you need to be reporting on now.
 What's ahead in research on chronic conditions, Alzheimer's and genetics?
What's evolving in technology?
What will be expected of caregivers?
What will extended lifespans look like?
How do changing ethnic populations impact aging issues?
Come explore these issues and more so you can start telling these stories now. | | AHCJ has many constantly updated resources to offer for journalists who may be covering flu, pandemics and public health preparedness. We have detailed tip sheets, speaker presentations about pandemics, animal-borne diseases, emergency preparedness and public health and much more. There is also a list of potential expert sources for everything from the science of flu to the ethics of quarantines, school closures and transportation limitations. The resource page also includes alerts and links to press briefings, hearings and news conferences on the issues.  The CDC's Dr. Carolyn Bridges, associate director of epidemiologic science, Influenza Division, NCIRD, CDC, answered questions from AHCJ members during a live interview hosted by journalist and author Maryn McKenna. An archive of that interview is now available. | 
Health reform is picking up steam in Congress. A major flash point in the coming debate is whether employers and individuals should be able to obtain health insurance through a public plan that is similar to Medicare, as well as private insurance from commercial carriers. The May 1 Talking Health program featured two experts on the subject as well as two journalists who provided their insights and suggestions for covering what will be a major story in the coming months. | 
Keynote speaker Uwe Reinhardt delivered an informative, but amusing, talk about health care economics.
Many of the tip sheets and presentations from the conference are now available.  Complementary and alternative medicine: What's working and what's ahead Online tools for creating multimedia: easy, accessible, and inexpensive Journalists learn to market, brand themselves Improving reporting on medical studies Do audiences understand health stories? Genetic, environmental factors at work in aging process Hospital patient safety initiatives borrow from transportation industry Reporters' preparation would decrease chaos in covering disasters Animal-to-human contact key to emerging diseases Obama order expected to increase speed, efficiency of stem cell research Gaps in evidence drive movement toward shared decision-making Mental health: Reporting beyond the labels Credit crisis, IRS changes affect hospital finances Doctor shortage a ‘crisis’ in Wash. Costs critical to stories about health care Now, more than ever, AHCJ offers training, networking and support for journalists. | | The Association of Health Care Journalists objects to any effort by the Journal of the American Medical Association to silence whistle-blowers who call attention to potential conflicts of interest involving study authors. It could discourage potential whistle-blowers from coming forward with crucial information that physicians and the general public urgently need to make informed decisions about medical care. | | A reporter's revelation of astonishing conflicts of interest by scientists advocating for early detection of lung cancer led to one of this year's Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. The awards also spotlighted such work as the exploration of a hidden world of illegal prescription drugs sold at swap meets, a narrative on a mechanic seeking to rebuild his life after an accident severed his arms, and a trip into the nightmarish world of a boy struggling with mental illness. The 2008 awards recognize the best health reporting in 11 categories covering print, broadcast and online media. In its fifth year, the contest received nearly 300 entries. | 
Health care journalists cited newsroom cutbacks, lack of time for research and travel and fewer opportunities for training at their news organization as factors making their jobs more challenging than ever, according to a survey released today by AHCJ and the Kaiser Family Foundation. But health journalists are a hardy bunch. Nearly three-quarters of health journalists surveyed said the amount of coverage given to health care topics has stayed the same or increased at their news organization and two-thirds said the quality of coverage has been stable or gotten better over the past few years. | | The Association of Health Care Journalists has urged President Barack Obama to end inherited policies that require public affairs officers to approve journalists' interviews with federal staff. Such policies, which are in place at such critical agencies as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and most agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services, hamper newsgathering and make it difficult for reporters to fulfill their obligation to hold government agencies accountable, AHCJ said in a letter to the Obama administration. | 
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Obama has presented his budget outline to Congress, including a proposal for $634 billion for U.S. health care, including money for the FDA to improve food safety, send visiting nurses to the homes of newborns, improve the American Indian health system, to invest in health information technology, cancer research and more. The budget proposal reiterates the president's comments in Tuesday night's speech but does not lay out a specific plan for reform. AHCJ has compiled coverage of the budget proposal and offers some tips on localizing coverage of health care reform efforts. | | Legislation introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 3 “would constitute a blow to the public’s right to access vital scientific data” if it goes forward, according to a statement by the Association of Health Care Journalists. The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, HR 801, introduced by U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. and others, would reverse a National Institutes of Health policy that requires federal research grantees to provide their peer-reviewed articles to PubMed Central, a free online database. Under the existing policy, manuscripts resulting from federally-funded research must be made publicly available within 12 months of their publication date. Read AHCJ’s statement. | |  Although AHCJ has long been known for its supportive network of members, this year we are launching a more formal program to link members seeking some guidance with members who have recognized expertise in specific areas. This will be especially helpful to those new to the beat or those who have had health coverage added to an already long list of duties.
The number of members we are able to assist will depend upon the number of long-time health care journalists within our ranks willing to share some of their time as mentors. Sign up today!
| | Although AHCJ membership continued to increase over the past year as more journalists learned of its training opportunities and useful services, the group recognizes the strain under which the news media finds itself. The economic downturn has resulted in layoffs, buyouts and downsizings in several industries, including our own. AHCJ's board and staff believe it's important to retain all the talented professionals who make up our membership. With that in mind, AHCJ is announcing a Transition Assistance Program to help members who are forced into a job change. Any current AHCJ member who is laid off or is required to take a buyout is eligible for TAP. | | How do your local hospitals stack against their competitors, others in your state and hospitals across the country? When HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt unveiled a patient survey database at the AHCJ conference in March, members filed story after story about their local hospitals. Now, AHCJ has made it easier for journalists to compare hospitals in their regions by generating spreadsheet files from the HHS database, allowing members to compare more than a few hospitals at a time, using spreadsheet or database software. AHCJ provides key documentation and explanatory material to help you understand the data possibilities and limits. Need help in analyzing Excel files? AHCJ offers a tutorial about investigating health data using spreadsheets. | | Check out AHCJ’s latest volume in its ongoing Slim Guide series. The latest guide walks reporters through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web site and highlights data resources. It is a starting place for finding national or state data and surveys when writing health stories. A Fast Stats section lists, by category, direct links to pages about specific diseases, conditions or datasets for reporters on deadline. For those who want to learn more, there are also step-by-step instructions with examples, story ideas and tips from successfully published stories that used CDC statistics. AHCJ publishes these reporting guides, with the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to help journalists understand and accurately report on specific subjects. | Free online training This free innovative simulation, "On the Beat: Covering Hospitals," guides you through the sources and resources you need to tackle the beat. You'll tap into the same tools that you'll use on the job, and you'll have a virtual mentor to walk you through the maze of reports, statistics and sources. Two story lines will teach you about reporting on hospital quality and how to report on hospital finances. Start today to hone your critical-thinking skills and gain the beat-specific knowledge needed to cover the hospitals in your community.
This online training module combines the reporting expertise of AHCJ with NewsU’s innovative e-learning experience and is made possible through a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. AHCJ has launched an interactive e-class as the online companion to the book “Covering Health in a Multicultural Society: A Resource Guide for Journalists.” Enroll in the class to take part in discussion forums and take short quizzes to test your knowledge. Complete the e-class, and get a certificate of completion. The course is a resource for understanding the increasing diversity of the audiences AHCJ members serve. | |
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