Articles from prior issues of The Advocate

November/December 1998

PROs Offer Innovative Ideas For Presentations
by Ken Forbes, Oregon DDS, and Rebecca Calvert, New Mexico DDS

DURING A BREAK OUT SESSION, three Professional Relations Officers (PRO) shared methods and tools they have used to make presentations of the Disability program. Leola Myers of Mississippi has been a PRO for one and a half years. She had received copies of other state’s newsletters and was impressed with the newsletter as a tool for presenting information to the medical community. Leola eventually decided to begin producing a newsletter, which she titled Pro Connections. She provided copies of the most recent newsletter. This newsletter is given to each CE provider on a quarterly basis, and it has been a very efficient means of getting information to the vendors regarding changes in procedures, requirements, clarifications and reminders of information required in reports. The second presenter was Sheila Dessieux from Missouri, which has five separate DDS offices. They have instituted regular training meetings for the CE providers in St. Louis and Springfield. A notice is sent to each vendor in the area with an RSVP form attached.

The training is conducted by the PRO in the area and the Chief Medical Consultant or whoever is selected to present the training by the Chief Medical Consultant. A mini-training session is presented on the sequential evaluation process, and providers are made familiar with the SSA application form, the information that is needed from the vendors and why such specific information is needed.

Training deals heavily with the need for objective medical documentation of functioning and medical source statements. Sheila also reported sending out surveys to DDS staff and doctors regarding the quality of vendor reports. A direct positive result of these activities has been an improvement in the quality and timeliness of CE reports.

The last presenter was Maureen Halsey-Wright from the Kentucky DDS. Her remarks dealt primarily with making presentations using PowerPoint, a computer software program. She conducts presentations at least annually to the residency programs at teaching hospitals. These presentations have yielded several future CE providers.

Maureen outlined the steps in her presentation including starting out by hooking a laptop to a TV, playing music as people enter the room, giving out informational packets, listing books and a reference list of DDS/SSA terminology and the type of evidence needed to document physician assessments. She suggested selecting colors for your presentation, carefully keeping in mind that bright colors keep your audience’s attention and blue is calming. Graphics can also be used in the presentation to enhance the total effect. When you have a presentation booth and cannot be there all the time to run your presentation, you can set it up on a laptop so it will run repeatedly. Other options include running just parts of the presentation, having a menu for the interested participant to select a key and watch a portion of the presentation. For really high tech, you can move the presentation to video and do voice overlay. Maureen and her husband Rudy made a video for one physician who uses it to share information with patients.

The panel was queried regarding their different methods for obtaining prison records. They all basically agreed that the key to a good working relationship with the prison systems involves one contact from DDS and one contact from the prison system, preferably the warden or director. The audience asked about newsletters for mass mailings and the panel agreed they used them all the time.

Another question was whether doctors really read newsletters and the panel responded affirmatively. How do they know? They know because the doctors have provided feedback specific to the subject matter in the newsletters. The last question was whether anyone was using Interactive Video Training (IVT) for sharing program information? The answer: yes, in North Carolina they record every program and invite groups in to view the tape. Sometimes they mail a copy of the tape out to an interested group.

The session was very informative and well presented.