2012-13 ASMBS President
Most Important Event
Review and Analysis of the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation/Center of Excellence concept, standards, organizational structure, and relationship with payers
During the seventeen months I served as President of our Society, we did a comprehensive review of the Accreditation/Center of Excellence concept by making a detailed evaluation of the proposed new standards, reviewing the input from the public, enabling a more open process to establish clarity and support from the majority, discussing with private payers and CMS, and adopting a difficult consensus among all parties involved including the leadership in the Executive Council and the American College of Surgeons.
In 2013, the ASMBS celebrated 30 years of accomplishments by establishing a new news magazine called CONNECT, a new web site and phone app with easier navigation and a public section, new accreditation standards, new relationship with ASMBS State Chapters with more comprehensive support, and the completion of a new annual meeting concept with the first Obesity Week in a joint partnership with The Obesity Society.
All the leadership and committees worked hard on different new projects that led us to many valuable and exciting things: 1. The first National quality improvement program dedicated to decrease readmissions rates was design by John Morton (Secretary Treasurer); 2. Established a taskforce to address reoperations in a guideline document; 3. Formalized the communication process with private payers on regular basis to address mutual needs; and, 4. Completed the groundwork for the first ASMSB textbook under the leadership of Ninh Nguyen (President-Elect).
Collaboration was very important as we continued the political advocacy with more than 20 obesity community groups and participated in an inter-society collaboration with the GI surgical professional societies.
It was an honor to serve as President of the ASMBS, which I am proud to say, continues to provide strong leadership in public understanding and advancing the science of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery!
Sincerely,
Jaime Ponce, MD
Watch Dr. Ponce’s Presidential Address
Read Dr. Ponce’s Presidential Address
Ponce, J. (2014) ‘2013 ASMBS Presidential Address 30 years of accomplishments: Where do we go from here?’, Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases, 10(2), pp. 191–197. doi:10.1016/j.soard.2014.01.019.