New Directions, New Leadership, New Location
The NBCA Board of Directors recently met in Boston and discussed the Alliance’s strategic directions. It reaffirmed NBCA’s commitment to serve as the leading volunteer-led advocacy and educational organization working on behalf of those who have or could experience blood clots. That latter group, as we well know, could include any of us.
More Engaged Patients
The NBCA Board agreed that NBCA would be a leader in preparing blood clot patients to become more active in their own healthcare. NBCA will increase its efforts to assist patients to be more equipped, enabled, empowered and engaged, giving them the tools and confidence to: (1) ask the right questions, (2) make more informed decisions and (3) take greater responsibility as equal partners with their physicians in the success of their healthcare and future well-being. Our efforts will also educate health care providers about the merits of genuine patient-centered care and the importance of sharing information with their patients in more useful and understandable ways.
Awareness and Prevention
The Board reinforced the continuing importance of NBCA’s role in public awareness building and preventing blood clots. The incidence of blood clots in the U.S. has tripled since 1990 from 250,000 annually to 600,000 – 900,000, with 100,000 -300,000 associated deaths. With the aging of our nation’s population, clotting disorders will only grow as a serious public health issue and NBCA role in prevention will grow as well.
New Leadership
The NBCA Board added four new members, electing Kathleen Smith, CEO for the Center of the Arts in Reisterstown, MD as its Board President. Click here for a link to the bios of all the NBCA Board of Directors. The NBCA Medical and Scientific Advisory Board added six new members. Its new Chair is Dr. Gary Raskob, a leader in clotting disorder research and Dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Oklahoma’s Health Science Center. Click here for the bios of our MASAB members. And NBCA’s new Chief Executive Officer is Joseph Isaacs, MSPH, FASAE, a veteran healthcare association executive, former NBCA President and Treasurer and a two-time clot survivor.
New Location
To advance its role in public policy advocacy, the NBCA Board of Directors also approved moving NBCA’s headquarters from Tarrytown, New York to the Washington, DC area in the months ahead.
These are exciting times at NBCA!
