Welcome

Dear friends:

G-I-N’s mission is to lead, strengthen and support collaboration in guideline development, adaptation, and implementation. Since its founding in 2002, G-I-N has established itself as one of the world’s most respected and effective organizations for guideline developers, users, and implementers. G-I-N has a strong desire to support its members in pursuit of providing the highest quality of patient care.

One of the major responsibilities of G-I-N’s Board of Trustees is to ensure that G-I-N not only continues its leadership role but also offers effective programs, products, and services to meet the needs of our members in the changing environment. I wanted to keep you in the loop and give you a mid-term report regarding what the Board of Trustees has been doing and summarize decisions that we have made since I became the Chair in August 2012. The detailed report can be accessed in our June 2013 enGINe.

G-I-N is a financially stable and growing organization despite the international economic situation. As a global organization with members spread across six continents, it is critical for our members to stay connected asides from at the annual meeting. This year, you will see many new offerings from G-I-N, including a launch of a webinar series, online interest groups, and an enhanced website. To help G-I-N members assess the strengths and weaknesses of a guideline, we are going to make our library more useful by introducing voluntary reporting on G-I-N standards for guidelines submitted for inclusion in the library. In addition, we are in the process of developing detailed papers to help G-I-N members understand and implement these standards.  The first paper, which we are hoping will be ready later this year, will address the very important issue of conflicts of interest. As a member, you will be able to access the minutes for Board meetings and conference calls on our website. G-I-N must continue to develop and strengthen current partnerships and explore new partnerships to accomplish our mission and goals. We are currently in the process of reaching out and hopefully will have some exciting collaborations to announce to you in the coming months. In addition, we are also in the process of establishing some regional communities of G-I-N, so stay tuned.

G-I-N 2013 is around the corner and I hope to see many of you in San Francisco. I am very pleased to announce that the G-I-N 2014 meeting will be in Melbourne, Australia and the G-I-N 2015 meeting will be in Netherlands (city to be decided soon).

Over the past year, many of my colleagues and friends have asked, “Why join G-I-N?” My response is that members benefit by networking with a great team of guideline developers and users, enhancing our profession, all focused on improving the quality of patient care by keeping abreast of the trends, challenges, and opportunities. Members benefits from the work of each other through education and collaboration. One of my favorite quotes, by Helen Keller, sums up the answer to this question nicely, “alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.”

Finally, I would really like to hear from you. Many of these changes are based on your suggestions to the Board over the past year. I appreciate your comments very much. Please send me an email at aqaseem@acponline.org or call me at +1 215 351-2570 with any feedback or more suggestions. All of the trustees, including myself, are here to serve you. I just can’t thank you enough for all that you do for G-I-N. As I have always said, you are the spirit of G-I-N and you are the network.

Warm regards,

Amir Qaseem, MD, PhD, MHA, FACP (Philadelphia, USA)
Chair of G-I-N