SECEC Strategic Plan 2020-2023

TABLE of CONTENTS

  1. PRESIDENT’s FOREWORD
  2. ABOUT THE PLAN
  3. ESSENTIALS
    1. Mission
    2. Vision
    3. Strategic Goals
  4. SWOT ANALYSIS
    1. Current Landscape / Background
    2. Action Areas / Potentials
    3. Cautions and Restraints
  5. EVALUATION and MEASUREMENTS
  6. REFERENCES

PRESIDENT’s FOREWORD

For modern societies, the benefits and necessity of action plans for the near future is now incontestable. It’s not surprising that a non-profit organization with limited and intermittent incomes, such as ours, would further profit from strategic planning, leastways in allocating its resources. Herein, our strategic plan will be our guide in arranging our priorities, setting tangibles goals and using our energy efficiently.

SECEC is a relatively young society, but it blossoms. Our number of members increases significantly, along with our area of influence that expands. With the initiation of SECEC Certification and fellowship program, we undertake the responsibility of maximizing and maintaining the excellence of the health care delivery to the patients with shoulder and elbow disorders. We are organizing one of the largest events of the orthopaedics and traumatology community with an immense participation. These are only a few of the many reasons why the management of our society is harder than before. At that point necessitated a more systematic and strategic management for using our limited resources and force more efficiently.

I believe that the success of a strategic plan depends on setting attainable, clear and concrete objectives. This document is created with a particular effort to avoid complex marketing and business terminology. Contrarily, it is composed with all the neatness possible to fulfill an extremely important purpose, to be accountable. Indeed, accountability is essential for our Executive Committee and we don’t feel relieved until we explain the reasons behind our actions and how and where we spent our money. When we have a solid strategic plan on which we base our decisions, and clear directives that we refined from our constitution, then the would have nothing but success and development.

The evaluation of the progress towards our goals is crucial. We need to define how we assess whether or not we are following the right path on the map. For this purpose we define specific indicators for the quantification of our efforts, milestones to reach to, in definite intervals and timetables to schedule each and every step reasonably. These objective tools will also be markedly useful for our administrative component to oversee ongoing processes.

As you will see, the measurement of the innovation is the hardest part. Oftentimes the innovation represents itself as a new design of implant or a novel surgical technique at other times. In whatever aspect it appears, SECEC will be able to quantify and measure the innovative processes to see how much of the ground we’re covering in a world that does not cease to evolve.

In this report you will find our mutual ambitions and objectives that we will run towards in the next three years. I am cordially grateful to the committee members for their diligent effort during the SWOT Analysis period preceding the creation of this plan.

Prof. Mehmet Demirhan, Secec President


ABOUT THE PLAN

SECEC Strategic Plan 2020-2023 has been constructed on a very concrete basis, which is the internal consultation of committee members and the SWOT analyses they have meticulously conducted.

Our plan starts with a brief introduction to the society, defining SECEC mission, vision and the essential strategic goals. The headlines of our strategic objectives are further developed as a short description and the period of time in which we are expecting to achieve them. In this section we have also elaborated the initial steps of the long journeys we embarked towards each and every goal.

The third part of our plan includes a detailed narrative version of the SWOT Analysis that has been conducted by our committee members. This is in fact the report of a devoted work that inspects our society with all its aspects. In this section you will find the ways that SECEC considers itself strong or weak; the incidents that are recognized as opportunities for our society and finally the threats that we are warned about. Although anonymous, it is emphasized when more than one committee pointed out to the same topic.

Lastly, a section of evaluation can be found at the end of the plan, in order to measure our progress during the interval that spans our plan. This is where our members can find the tools for overseeing the progress and inspect the administrative level of our society.

We wish to thank our members for their time and consideration, and hoping to have their feedbacks, contributions and comments on the purpose of playing their parts in the future of our beloved society.

The Executive Committee


ESSENTIALS

SECEC Mission: Our association provides for scientific cooperation and continuing training of European orthopaedic surgeons specialized in surgery of the shoulder and elbow in order to contribute to the development of the physiological, pathological and therapeutic study of those joints.

SECEC Vision: SECEC continuously seeks to excel itself at performing its duties and responsabilities as the umbrella organization for European National Societies for Shoulder and Elbow Surgery as well as the link to the other international/intercontinental organizations. Pioneering and leading institution in the education on the management of shoulder and elbow disorders.

SECEC aims to enrich the scientific knowledge and facilitates its exchange, accumulates and shares the experience in the field of prevention and treatment of diseases and injuries concerning the shoudler and elbow joints.

STRATEGIC GOALS

  • Education: High and Equal: SECEC works for increasing the level of knowledge and experience of young surgeons to the highest possible degree, and eliminate all unfavorable circumstances that interfere. SECEC also aims to guarantee that all its members are subjected to a structured and standardized education program on which they can later build their personal reflexions. In this purpose SECEC will;
    • Announce and publish the Shoulder and Elbow Curriculum and will provide educational platforms which cover a significant percentage of its content.
    • Implement the SECEC Certification program and establish the minimum conditions to enable all young members to subscribe.
    • Keep Eastern European Committee active and work for the equality of opportunity.
    • Increase the number of surgeons that profit of SECEC resources in educational purposes.
    • Create live or online platforms on which young surgeons can meet with the opinion leaders
    • Increase the number of fellows continuesly and start new fellowship programs.
    • Collaborate with its peer societies and EFORT in establishing a higher baseline for minimum level of knowledge of the European orthopaedic surgeons.
  • Innovation: SECEC aims to be tuned up to the highest level of scientifically proven innovation. Moreover, SECEC intends to endorse creative projects and encourages the invention. For this purpose, SECEC will;
    • Support innovative approaches and interdisciplinary collaborations for translational research.
    • Encourage opinion leaders to contribute to the research and development of new techniques and products.
    • Financially support high quality scientific work and task force assignments.
    • Increase the number of scientific awards in order to motivate researchers for innovative projects.
  • Patronage: SECEC focuses on being recognized as a trademark with its high quality contributions to the scientific events and a refined evaluation process before granting patronages. In this purpose SECEC will;
    • Implement the ‘New Patronage Criteria’ so that SECEC patronage is renowned as a standard and increase the attractiveness of selected events.
    • Introduce ‘Institutional Certification’ as a permanent type of Patronage where Medical Centers that met the predetermined criteria would be given the title of ‘SECEC Centre of Excellence’
  • Expertise: To encourage opinion leaders and supports conjugate reaction and movement towards controversies as a reference organization. To act against patient dissatisfaction and reinforce practical areas that are prone to generate conflicts. In this way SECEC would;
    • Propose legal institutions an official service of expert opinion in cases of litigation relating to conditions affecting the shoulder and elbow.
    • Officially contribute to the creations of new European Regulations for the medical devices in use.
    • Create task forces to inspect new implants or surgical techniques used in the treatment of shoulder and elbow disorders.
    • Use social media accounts and website to reach a significant amount of non-member population, to promote the society, to increase its recognition and to contribute community-based education for the fulfillment of its social responsibility.
  • Rejuvenescence: SECEC takes action in order to increase the number of junior members and to facilitate by all means the subscription process for young members to the society. To achieve that, SECEC will;
    • No longer request membership fee from orthopaedic surgeons younger than 32 years old.
    • Introduce ‘Junior Members Committee’ in order to amplify junior members’ voice as they will be represented directly on the Executive Committee by their chairman. This committee mainly focuses on the circumstances that affect European young shoulder and elbow surgeons in their education or professional life.
  • Restore the balance: SECEC aims to align wisely its financial resources with its strategic priorities and survive global financial crises. Before 2021, SECEC will;
    • Implement more efficient methods for collecting annual fees.
    • Discontinue canceling its annual congress in years when ICSES is organized.
    • Improve its relationship with the industry and elaborate on new platforms of interchange.
    • Diversify society’s revenues and find new funding sources. The Executive committee will reevaluate our society’s strengths from a Revenue-Generating point of view.

SWOT ANALYSIS

CURRENT LANDSCAPE / BACKGROUND (Strenghts and Weaknesses)

  • SECEC is a respectful and well recognized society, with a strong influence beyond the European borders to an international extent. That influence brings along an innate strength and thus SECEC will remain strong as long as being its member is a privilege for a shoulder and elbow surgeon.
  • SECEC maintains close contribution with its peer societies. These positive interactions and mutual support provides a great strength for our society as well as our friend societies.
  • SECEC establishes high quality scientific platforms in order to gather European surgeons for exchanging knowledge and experience. These platforms consist of live events such as Annual Congresses and Closed Meetings, as well as online platforms such as Webinars and E-Congresses. SECEC takes part in the organizations of EFORT, and undertakes ‘Shoulder and Elbow Sessions’ embodied within its structure.
  • World-renowned shoulder and elbow surgeons, key opinion leaders, inventors and the best instructors are active members of SECEC. The accumulation of experience in SECEC is so strong that it creates a gravitational force attracting the industry and new members. SECEC is, and should continue to be the influencer of the shoulder and elbow practice. Industry closely collaborates with the key opinion leaders who contributed to the design of important implants or techniques in our practice.
  • SECEC organizes very attractive events and gathers a high quality crowd that is naturally followed by the industry as a chemoattraction. High scientific content is presented by opinion leaders with high reputation and the other societies are represented at the level of presidency. SECEC prefers elegant venues in attractive cities which notably increases participation.
  • Provides grants and prizes for talented surgeons, as well as important research projects that give direction to our practice and to the industry
  • New European regulation on medical devices, EUCOMED and Medtech implement some restrictions for active societies. Cooperation with other societies and a political stance will be required in the management of these interactions.
  • There are countries where SECEC is relatively less recognized or there are strong national societies so that they can compete with the umbrella organization position of SECEC in their home country.
  • SECEC membership criteria have recently been criticized for being too selective and evoking the misinterpretation of the society being too closed. For this reason, our membership committee has re-evaluated our membership criteria in order to embrace a larger part of the community without deviating our scientific norms. New membership criteria have been accepted by our Executive Committee and announced on the new website. Essential changes also have been implemented concerning our annual fees that are reported as being too expensive. Junior membership annual fee has officially been canceled and a reduced fee option without the journal has been presented to the affiliate members.
  • SECEC’s presence on social media needs to be amplified. We must be represented on various social platforms in order to adequately promote the society. Following our new website as the flagship, SECEC will appear on every decent social platform that would be used in our cause. For this purpose, a task force will be created within our Website Committee and the newly formed Junior Members Committee to fulfill this requirement.
  • The increase in the number of our members and processes related to SECEC Certification require intense workforce. Under these circumstances, SECEC Central Office will be reinforced competently before 2020 Poznan Congress.

ACTION AREAS / POTENTIALS (Opportunities)

  • National Registries provide very valuable data that can be highly beneficial for our Society in many ways. Registry data is interpreted to design high-quality research projects. Registries are competent tools for monitoring new trends in surgical practice. Different registry data sets can be pooled to gather larger statistical data and to understand the inclinations of the orthopaedic community to an international perspective. SECEC aims to play a key role in the management of national registries and their international expansion.
  • Increasing number of young members creates a great opportunity for our society. Each young member should be considered as a fresh mind full of brilliant ideas, as well as a strong, devoted and entousiastic heart to work diligently for the society. Another crucial role of young members in our society is to carry SECEC’s knowledge and experience into future members. In the near future, young members will increasingly be assigned in the committees and will boost the dynamism.
  • SECEC recently launched its New Website with an elegant design and notably many new features. It’s more user friendly for both members and administration. Our new domain name www.secec-essse.org belongs to the society, along with the former domain name’s ownership being transferred also to our part. The new website will be able to support our large scientific content and will take part also in the certification program as an online education platform. The far-reaching announcement of our new website brought along an increase in the visitor counts and thus the visibility of our society. From a financial point of view, we had a very reasonable contract with the italian company which is our new service provider.
  • Fellowships are the way SECEC communicates with the world. Each fellowship creates a living platform on which surgeons exchange their knowledge, experience and culture. This is why SECEC heritage enlarges with each encounter. Fellows from the Eastern European Countries visit Western European centers for eliminating unfavorable financial conditions.

CAUTIONS AND RESTRAINTS (Threats)

  • Despite being a non-profit organization, SECEC is affected by current global financial turbulences. Indeed, for every action of a society, no matter how accurate is the strategic plan, money is the rate determining step. As it is mentioned previously, the most remarkable benefit of having a strategic plan is allocating our limited resources efficiently. Our financial plan will allow our organization to be proactive rather than reactive to sudden financial hardships. Moreover, SECEC aims to increase the number of members and the proportion of members that actually pay the annual fee. Very soon, new methods of payment other than PayPal, namely via credit card and an easier payment interface on the new website will be operational.
  • Traditionally SECEC canceled its annual congress and organized closed meetings in years when International Congress of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery (ICSES) is held. Recently, this established practice has been thoroughly discussed in our Executive Committee and a decision has been made anonymously in the way of discontinuing this implementation. SECEC will organize its annual congress every year except for the years when ICSES is held in a European Country. This essential change is expected to remarkably improve our society’s financial status which then, can be aligned with our educational activities.
  • SECEC does not consider its peer societies as a threat. Contrarily SECEC, intends to maintain and reinforce the strong collaboration between its peer societies, in order to enhance the global quality and abundance of the healthcare provided to patients with orthopaedic disorders. SECEC claims to be the umbrella organization overarching all national societies for shoulder and elbow surgery in Europe an is willing to cooperate with all other orthopaedic societies in terms of its expertise area.
  • SECEC Website will participate in a competition environment with its increasing video content, including rivals such as Vumedi, Youtube and personal initiatives. SECEC will maintain its competitiveness with high quality audiovisual material, its specialty and continuity. Video content of SECEC Website will be organized, structured and referential. The attendance to the visual material will be monitored and will grant the candidate an amount of credit as a part of the certification program.

EVALUATION

We need to evaluate our progress. Performance indicators are identified to assess the progress towards the goals that are set. SECEC will be satisfied with the advancement if the mentioned indicators are met.

Evaluation of the progression will be performed by the Executive Committee once in every year, during the annual congress and with a participation quorum of at least eight members. Executive Committee will agree on a time table for each strategic goal, and the milestones will be checked every year for the follow up of the improvements.

Each strategic goal will be assigned to a member of the Executive committee, depending on the relation between his committee’s tasks and the concept of the selected goal. This member is responsible for the preparation and the presentation of an annual report solely on the given topic, during the ExCom meeting. The executive committee compares the annual report to the strategic plan and will evaluate the current situation based on this strategic goal.

Evaluation methods for each strategic goals:

  • Communication: To ensure that every member of SECEC has acquired the Strategic Plan.
  • High and Equal: Qualification Committee will provide us with convenient methods of measurement end evaluation of our members that complete the certification program.
  • Innovation: Research and Development Committee is currently evaluating abstracts for SECEC Scientific Prizes. Along with this main task, the R&D committee will set criteria for innovative research and assess all the abstracts that are published by SECEC members, during one year period and declare a final innovative score.
  • Patronage: The Education Committee will evaluate patronage applications of scientific events and collect quantitative data after the event has been organized under the SECEC patronage. This data include the number of participants, number of SECEC members participated, number of scientific sessions, panels, CME credits, and all the quantitative inputs that can help our committee for rating the scientific level of the event in question.
  • Rejuvenescence: Membership Committee and newly formed Junior Members Committee would report the statistics for the numbers of new members, the percentage of junior members and the overall increase in the number of junior members.
  • Restore the balance: SECEC treasurer reports on his management and submits the balance sheet for approval by the membership annually. Our financial progress can be monitored by the upward tendencies in our budget revenues.

REFERENCES

  1. The European health report 2018. WHO regional office for Europe, 2018. Available at http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/379862/who-ehr-2018-eng.pdf?ua=1
  2. MedTech Europe Code of Ethical Business Practice. MedTEch Europe 2015. Available at: https://www.medtecheurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2019_MTE_Code-of-Ethical-Business-Practice-QA-DG.pdf
  3. Talbot CL, Ring J, Holt EM. Litigation relating to conditions affecting the shoulder and elbow: an analysis of claims against the National Health Service. Bone Joint J. 2014 May;96-B(5):574-9. doi: 10.1302/0301-620X.96B5.33257
  4. Yin B, Gandhi J, Limpisvasti O, Mohr K, ElAttrache NS. Impact of fellowship training on clinical practice of orthopaedic sports medicine. J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2015 Mar 4;97(5):e27. doi: 10.2106/JBJS.N.00164

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