Report of the Ad Hoc Committee to Increase the Participation of Medical Physicist Assistants (MPAs) in the AAPM-555C0C7E
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Report of the Ad Hoc Committee to Increase the Participation of Medical Physicist Assistants (MPAs) in the AAPM (AHMPA)
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Anthony Blatnica, MS (Chair)
Brandan Darensbourg, MBA (consultant)
Per Halvorsen, MS
Kathleen Hintenlang, PhD
Jennifer Lynn Johnson, PhD (Vice Chair)
Jill Lucas, RT(R)(M) (consultant)
Jared Ohrt, MS
Brent Parker, PhD
Horacio Patrocinio, MS
Joann Prisciandaro, PhD
Thomas Ruckdeschel, MS
Beth Schueler, PhD
J. Anthony Seibert, PhD
Matt Vanderhoek, PhD
Arin Winsor, RT(R) (consultant)
David Zamora, MS
COMMITTEE CHARGE
To develop organizational initiatives to increase the participation of MPAs in the AAPM. Such initiatives may include, but are not limited to:
This report was commissioned to examine the potential to increase participation of medical physicist assistants (MPAs) in the AAPM from the five MPAs currently identified using the AAPM membership database and to learn what AAPM benefits are of interest to MPAs. The MPA workforce is expected to grow as healthcare economics drives clinical institutions to more efficiently provide safe and highquality patient care. In the United States, MPAs currently do not have their own professional association. Given the close working relationship between MPAs and qualified medical physicists, AHMPA has evaluated the situation for MPAs and concludes that the AAPM has an opportunity to provide a professional home for MPAs by offering them valuable resources, benefits, and membership. Expansion and Inclusion of MPAs into the AAPM is in alignment with the following AAPM’s strategic goals:
All identified benefits are consistent with current benefits offered to all AAPM members (with the exception of MPA credentialing).
AAPM would be able to increase its diversity of membership, maintain leadership in the field of medical physics, and financially benefit through MPA membership and participating in educational offerings as revenue sources. AAPM QMP members benefit from the standardized quality of MPAs’ knowledge and skills. MPAs would benefit from recognized training and allow for increased employment flexibility. The risk within the AAPM is a subset of members that do not want to diversify its membership out of fear of competition and decreased standards. The risk external to the AAPM is that MPAs may either join another established professional association or create their own.
AHMPA recommends that AAPM:
The recommendations fit readily within AAPM’s normal operations and does not overly extend existing resources or require new processes for implementation.
Overview of current situation
While a Qualified Medical Physicist (QMP) provides clinical professional services in one or more of the subfields of medical physics, some clinical institutions may utilize Medical Physicist Assistants (MPAs) for certain clinical activities such as quality improvement and management of imaging and/or treatment systems. The MPA has completed relevant didactic education and has attained practical clinical medical physics knowledge through specific training and appropriate demonstration of competency under the supervision of a QMP. [REF: AAPM PP-29] With QMP oversight, the MPA aims to improve the quality of medical care and diagnosis through the application, testing, and maintenance of the involved medical technologies.
While the current number of utilized MPAs is difficult to assess, the number of MPAs in the United States has the potential to increase. As healthcare economics puts pressure on clinical institutions to be more efficient in providing safe and quality patient care, the number of MPAs employed in the United States and elsewhere may increase in the near future. As educational programs related to subspecialties of medical physics, such as medical dosimetry and radiological technologist programs, continue to graduate students with relevant didactic educations, a larger pool of individuals may choose to work as MPAs if they are unable to find work in their trained profession. Similarly, as the cost of a college education has increased, STEM graduates may look for employment like MPA work to pay off student debt before they commit to graduate programs such as medical physics. As the pool of potential MPAs increases, so does their potential to become a more formalized role in the healthcare workforce in need of a professional home.
MPAs in the United States do not currently have their own professional association or organization. The niche employment of MPAs means they are a new market opportunity for American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM). Inclusion of MPAs into the AAPM is in alignment with the following AAPM’s strategic goals:
While AAPM Board of Directors (BOD) are interested in expanding AAPM membership, individual AAPM members may not be in agreement. The AHMPA recognizes the potential internal conflict this would create and AAPM’s challenge will be not only to generate a strong collective willingness to embrace a membership expansion. AAPM has historically and generally kept the membership for those within narrowly defined qualifications, minimizing inclusion of medical dosimetrists, radiotherapy linac engineers, vendors, and physicians, with the former two creating their own professional organizations of American Association of Medical Dosimetrists (AAMD) and Radiotherapy Service Engineers’ Association (RESA), respectively. [REF: www.medicaldosimetry.org; linaceng.org] If the AAPM BOD and membership overall are not collectively interested in bringing MPAs into membership, MPAs may either elect to organize themselves outside the AAPM, or be approached and integrated by another professional association, such as the American Association of Medical Dosimetrists, American Society of Radiologic Technologists, or Organization of Medical Physics Associates of Canada).
More recently, however, the AAPM BOD has decided to expand its membership, including a new Professional Affiliate, MPA Associate, and expansion into the international medical physics markets. Within the AAPM, its member diversity means various members have different professional and educational needs within the organization. AAPM has successful experience in fostering special-interest groups such as the students and trainees subcommittee, new professionals subcommittee, women’s professional subcommittee, diversity and inclusion subcommittees, regional organization committee, and international subcommittees. In consideration of expansion of MPAs as AAPM members, AAPM is in a strong position to offer and tailor what MPAs have self-identified as their professional and educational needs. Because of the close working relationship between MPAs and QMPs, AAPM has the opportunity to formalize activities and resources similar to those provided its current members that may be of value to current and future MPAs.
Our solution
The AAPM could become the professional home for MPAs in the United States. The AAPM assists its members to advance medicine and patient care through education, scientific research, and professional practice. As a volunteer-led organization, it offers opportunities for professional growth and networking. The AAPM develops and maintains scientific and clinical resources that define technical procedures, professional practice, and provide educational content. Membership offers access to many scientific and online technical publications. AAPM provides national and regional meetings throughout the year for learning and collaboration with peers and vendors.
Market analysis
Because MPAs work in a variety of environments, come from a variety of training backgrounds, and do not currently participate in an MPA-specific professional organization in the United States, AHMPA did not have a baseline estimate of the number of MPAs working in the various medical physics subspecialties. At the time of writing (December 2020), the AAPM identified five MPAs in its membership as Associates; other working MPAs may qualify for other membership categories. AHMPA decided to develop an MPA survey to ascertain the potential number of MPAs interested in the AAPM.
As part of the introduction, the AHMPA, with AAPM HQ staff assistance, created an informational flyer explaining what the AAPM is and the roles and possible benefits an MPA might receive when joining. [2020.AHMPA.Flyer attached, available at https://w3.aapm.org/media/index.php on the right, informational flyers] Similarly, AHMPA, with AAPM HQ staff assistance, created a comprehensive online survey (QuestionPro Survey Software; https://www.questionpro.com/) to collect key demographics, such as education, years of experience, location, and clinical area of responsibility. Additionally, the survey requested that the MPAs rank and order desired benefits the AAPM can offer. Finally, the survey aimed to capture the respondent’s current AAPM membership status, where applicable, or to determine if the individual would be interested in joining and volunteering within the AAPM.
In lieu of distributing the request to the entire AAPM membership, the AHMPA instead focused on a targeted email distribution that included both the flyer and the survey (accessible by an Internet link or QR code). AHMPA distributed its survey to three main groups of medical physicists that were identified as likely having MPAs as well as to multiple organizations that potentially have a large subset of their membership who are performing MPA duties, yet do not know about the role of an MPA or the AAPM:
Academic – Medical Physics Departments, Division, or Programs that might have robust QC programs already employing MPAs (via the AAPM Management of Medical Physics Programs and Departments (MMPPD));
Survey results
The survey was open between November 4, 2020 and December 21, 2020. The survey was viewed 423 times, with 100 participants starting the survey, 81 respondents completing the survey and 19 participants that did not complete the survey. The average time of survey completion was 9 minutes. Of the respondents, 15 (18%) stated they were already members of the AAPM and 50 (59%) indicated they would be interested in learning more about volunteering on an AAPM committee if they were to join AAPM.
The respondents each identified their five most desired benefits of AAPM membership. The following is a list of those benefits, ranked in order, with the total number of times each benefit was selected indicated in parentheses:
The AAPM has an established record of providing benefits for its members for the high importance topics identified in the survey. One exception to this was the identification of "Support an MPA credentialing process", which does not exist at the time of this writing. Generating an MPA credentialing process would require effort within the AAPM to implement, and could be a potential goal for a future MPA-specific group to investigate.
The survey also requested that the respondents characterize various umbrella topics on a 1 – 4 Likert scale of importance: not important (1); somewhat important (2); very important (3); or urgently important (4). This aims to exhibit the perceived importance of professional development for personal growth. The following list ranks, in descending order, the average importance score of each topic presented in the survey:
The results related to professional development opportunities for growth are consistent with the MPA role and responsibilities in the various subfields of medical physics. Again, these are categories AAPM already provides for its current members. The full survey results are provided at the end of this report. {see attached}
Risk assessment
As previously stated, MPAs not having a centralized organization in the United States represents an opportunity for AAPM. Engaging MPAs would benefit AAPM as an organization by contributing three AAPM strategic plan goals:
If the AAPM is able to attract members, it benefits from the diversity of its membership to enhance the science, education, and professional activities and offerings. This enables AAPM to continue to be the eminent leader in providing medical physics services, through education, standardization, and scientific support. Increasing MPA membership in the AAPM will provide an additional dues revenue, as well as potential meeting registration revenue. If AAPM is able to provide necessary continuing education credits then there is the possibility for further online learning revenue.
Current AAPM QMP members that work with MPAs would also benefit from MPA membership in the AAPM. These include, but are not limited to educational and training opportunities, which could potentially reduce the training burden of supervising QMPs. Access to AAPM resources would ensure that those resources are correlated with MPA goals due to the similar nature of the work, thereby having the potential to elevate the field due to common training and standardization of assigned tasks, as well as normalizing the working relationship between MPAs and QMPs. The standardization of MPA education will enable MPAs to have transferable skills to offer multiple employers, increasing the ability for MPAs to change jobs as the opportunities arise.
While MPAs work closely with QMPs, and their interests are aligned with AAPM, other organizations may be interested in MPAs joining them. Other professional organizations are facing the same financial risks due to the impact of healthcare economics on their respective members. One response to weather uncertainty is to expand appropriate membership and related-service offerings. While this may include expanding into the international market for the given profession, there is the opportunity to become attractive to a segment of healthcare employees rather than competing with other organizations. Currently, MPAs in Canada may belong to OMPAC, an organization that was established in 2009 to primarily defend MPA professional issues in Canada. They provide resources, surveys, and physics associates meeting opportunities, holding its annual meeting during COMP/CCPM Annual Scientific Meeting, as well as providing an online community for members. OMPAC’s strength is their 11-year experience and established community. As an organization, AAPM has greater volunteer resources at its disposal.
Some MPAs in Canada may or may not also have COMP/CCPM membership. COMP/CCPM is a similar professional medical physics organization to AAPM that has MPA members. As such, they have experience and a community available to interested members. It is yet to be seen whether they would reach out to MPAs in the USA, or whether USA-based MPAs would seek membership outside the USA. The American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT) is an organization that was established in 1922 to provide credentials in medical imaging, interventional procedures, and radiation therapy to radiologic technologists, while the ASRT was established in earlier in 1920. ARRT prepares individuals for working in the field through testing and certification while ASRT provides continuing education, advocacy and fosters a community for its members. However, neither organization currently provides credentials to members that perform MPA-specific duties, and in June 2018, ARRT discontinued the Quality Management (QM) Credentials for just over 1,200 of its members. ARRT currently has over 340,000 members who hold over 540,000 certifications, and is actively engaged in its membership. The ARRT has recently opened a comment period about their QM Credentials so they may get feedback regarding the outdated registration exam.
Marketing and sales plan
AHPMA, in collaboration with the AAPM HQ staff, have already created the MPA brochure. Additionally, AHMPA with the permission of AAPM may share the survey results with survey respondents and initially targeted- emailed individuals. The goal would be to loop back to participants not only with the survey results, but if appropriate, with a link to the AAPM membership application. There are also opportunities to target MPAs more broadly, if approved, through the use of social media, such as AAPM’s Facebook page, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter accounts. This could be expanded to other professional organizations that are sources of MPAs, such as ASRT and American Institute of Physics. Similarly, any MPA subcommittee could devise a marketing and social media plan to provide to AAPM HQ staff initially, and over time (after subcommittee growth) take over appropriately. Primarily the marketing will be initially targeted but organic. Ideally metrics will be able to be tracked.
Milestones
Team
The AHMPA recommends creating a new MPA subcommittee within Professional Council under Clinical Practice Subcommittee. The MPA subcommittee would also benefit from having some AHMPA member crossover to help MPA subcommittee members become familiar with AAPM committee structure, governance, etc. Additionally, other committees within the AAPM were identified for potential MPA volunteer participation that included:
Given the AAPM is a volunteer-led organization, the costs to create a subcommittee are negligible. MPA subcommittee members would volunteer time to identify appropriate projects to meet its charges and goals of MPAs. Like other subcommittee costs, any MPA subcommittee would need to submit budget requests to its parent committee for budget approval in the regular annual budgeting process, such as for an in-person meeting other than regularly scheduled subcommittee meetings at the AAPM Annual, RSNA, etc... Given the survey results, the only real potential expense would relate to investigating and potentially creating a credentialing program, as well as staff- related costs. This would require its own business plan to be submitted and reviewed within the AAPM for approval. The rest of the MPA member benefits should be covered by revenues paid by MPA members either through dues, meeting registrations, or other educational credit offerings.
AHMPA believes AAPM may earn more income if more MPAs joined the AAPM. MPAs are part of the Associate membership category, paying a dues rate of 55% of Associate member dues. For 2021, the MPA Associate members pay $268. While five MPAs were identified in the AAPM membership, another ten may be currently Full members or members under another membership category. However, the following table provides a range of income from dues:
Similarly, AAPM may earn more income if more MPAs participated in educational offerings, either AAPM meetings or other educational offerings. Currently the CEUs in the Online Learning Center are not approved for ASRT, ARRT, or AAMD credits; but if those credits can be approved, this could have the potential to add $75 per MPA who selects to add this to their membership (not tallied in the table above, but could add up to $6,000 at the maximum number MPAs in the table). The only uncertainty would be additional continuing education credit review not otherwise completed by AAPM staff or volunteers.
Per AAPM standard practice, AHMPA recommends FINCOM would be best suited to calculating any formal break-even analysis. Regardless of the direct and indirect costs currently identified, AAPM is already operationally organized for its current membership. The resources and effort required to implement MPAs may be worthwhile, particularly given the intangible benefits to including more MPAs within AAPM due to alignment.
Finance
There is no perceived additional funding required to implement expanding MPA membership into the AAPM as AAPM HQ staff costs are similar to current process, and the remainder would be volunteer effort. No additional outside resources have been identified as necessary.
Please click here to see full report
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Anthony Blatnica, MS (Chair)
Brandan Darensbourg, MBA (consultant)
Per Halvorsen, MS
Kathleen Hintenlang, PhD
Jennifer Lynn Johnson, PhD (Vice Chair)
Jill Lucas, RT(R)(M) (consultant)
Jared Ohrt, MS
Brent Parker, PhD
Horacio Patrocinio, MS
Joann Prisciandaro, PhD
Thomas Ruckdeschel, MS
Beth Schueler, PhD
J. Anthony Seibert, PhD
Matt Vanderhoek, PhD
Arin Winsor, RT(R) (consultant)
David Zamora, MS
COMMITTEE CHARGE
To develop organizational initiatives to increase the participation of MPAs in the AAPM. Such initiatives may include, but are not limited to:
- Formation of committees, sub-committees, working groups, or task groups to address topics of specific interest to MPAs
- Development of mechanisms to provide MPA representation on relevant AAPM committees, sub-committees, working groups, or task groups
- Development of mechanisms to establish dues and meeting registration fees that are not a barrier to MPAs seeking participation in the AAPM or its meetings
- Development of meeting programming that is attractive and of particular interest to MPAs
- Development of leadership training and opportunities for MPAs
- Education of STEM undergraduate students and the general public on the role of an MPA and career opportunities in the field
Executive Summary
Report of the Ad Hoc Committee to Increase the Participation of Medical Physicist Assistants (MPAs) in the AAPM (AHMPA)
December 2020
Report of the Ad Hoc Committee to Increase the Participation of Medical Physicist Assistants (MPAs) in the AAPM (AHMPA)
December 2020
This report was commissioned to examine the potential to increase participation of medical physicist assistants (MPAs) in the AAPM from the five MPAs currently identified using the AAPM membership database and to learn what AAPM benefits are of interest to MPAs. The MPA workforce is expected to grow as healthcare economics drives clinical institutions to more efficiently provide safe and highquality patient care. In the United States, MPAs currently do not have their own professional association. Given the close working relationship between MPAs and qualified medical physicists, AHMPA has evaluated the situation for MPAs and concludes that the AAPM has an opportunity to provide a professional home for MPAs by offering them valuable resources, benefits, and membership. Expansion and Inclusion of MPAs into the AAPM is in alignment with the following AAPM’s strategic goals:
- SG02E - Gain greater understanding of current and future member needs.
- SG02F - Expand the membership of AAPM.
- SG03D - Maintain and enhance AAPM's position as the leader in medical physics nationally.
- Continuing education – online and at AAPM local/national meetings
- Access to medical/health physics related publications, journals, reports, and guidelines
- MPA career/job opportunities
- Support of an MPA credentialing process
- Foster MPA community and network
- Quality
- Safety
- Education
- Equipment performance evaluation
All identified benefits are consistent with current benefits offered to all AAPM members (with the exception of MPA credentialing).
AAPM would be able to increase its diversity of membership, maintain leadership in the field of medical physics, and financially benefit through MPA membership and participating in educational offerings as revenue sources. AAPM QMP members benefit from the standardized quality of MPAs’ knowledge and skills. MPAs would benefit from recognized training and allow for increased employment flexibility. The risk within the AAPM is a subset of members that do not want to diversify its membership out of fear of competition and decreased standards. The risk external to the AAPM is that MPAs may either join another established professional association or create their own.
AHMPA recommends that AAPM:
- Finalize MPA membership category as required, including appropriate benefits and dues structure, consistent with other AAPM membership categories;
- Create a new MPA subcommittee within Professional Council under Clinical Practice Subcommittee;
- Market and target potential MPAs for AAPM membership
The recommendations fit readily within AAPM’s normal operations and does not overly extend existing resources or require new processes for implementation.
Overview of current situation
While a Qualified Medical Physicist (QMP) provides clinical professional services in one or more of the subfields of medical physics, some clinical institutions may utilize Medical Physicist Assistants (MPAs) for certain clinical activities such as quality improvement and management of imaging and/or treatment systems. The MPA has completed relevant didactic education and has attained practical clinical medical physics knowledge through specific training and appropriate demonstration of competency under the supervision of a QMP. [REF: AAPM PP-29] With QMP oversight, the MPA aims to improve the quality of medical care and diagnosis through the application, testing, and maintenance of the involved medical technologies.
While the current number of utilized MPAs is difficult to assess, the number of MPAs in the United States has the potential to increase. As healthcare economics puts pressure on clinical institutions to be more efficient in providing safe and quality patient care, the number of MPAs employed in the United States and elsewhere may increase in the near future. As educational programs related to subspecialties of medical physics, such as medical dosimetry and radiological technologist programs, continue to graduate students with relevant didactic educations, a larger pool of individuals may choose to work as MPAs if they are unable to find work in their trained profession. Similarly, as the cost of a college education has increased, STEM graduates may look for employment like MPA work to pay off student debt before they commit to graduate programs such as medical physics. As the pool of potential MPAs increases, so does their potential to become a more formalized role in the healthcare workforce in need of a professional home.
MPAs in the United States do not currently have their own professional association or organization. The niche employment of MPAs means they are a new market opportunity for American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM). Inclusion of MPAs into the AAPM is in alignment with the following AAPM’s strategic goals:
- SG02E - Gain greater understanding of current and future member needs.
- SG02F - Expand the membership of AAPM.
- SG03D - Maintain and enhance AAPM's position as the leader in medical physics nationally.
While AAPM Board of Directors (BOD) are interested in expanding AAPM membership, individual AAPM members may not be in agreement. The AHMPA recognizes the potential internal conflict this would create and AAPM’s challenge will be not only to generate a strong collective willingness to embrace a membership expansion. AAPM has historically and generally kept the membership for those within narrowly defined qualifications, minimizing inclusion of medical dosimetrists, radiotherapy linac engineers, vendors, and physicians, with the former two creating their own professional organizations of American Association of Medical Dosimetrists (AAMD) and Radiotherapy Service Engineers’ Association (RESA), respectively. [REF: www.medicaldosimetry.org; linaceng.org] If the AAPM BOD and membership overall are not collectively interested in bringing MPAs into membership, MPAs may either elect to organize themselves outside the AAPM, or be approached and integrated by another professional association, such as the American Association of Medical Dosimetrists, American Society of Radiologic Technologists, or Organization of Medical Physics Associates of Canada).
More recently, however, the AAPM BOD has decided to expand its membership, including a new Professional Affiliate, MPA Associate, and expansion into the international medical physics markets. Within the AAPM, its member diversity means various members have different professional and educational needs within the organization. AAPM has successful experience in fostering special-interest groups such as the students and trainees subcommittee, new professionals subcommittee, women’s professional subcommittee, diversity and inclusion subcommittees, regional organization committee, and international subcommittees. In consideration of expansion of MPAs as AAPM members, AAPM is in a strong position to offer and tailor what MPAs have self-identified as their professional and educational needs. Because of the close working relationship between MPAs and QMPs, AAPM has the opportunity to formalize activities and resources similar to those provided its current members that may be of value to current and future MPAs.
Our solution
The AAPM could become the professional home for MPAs in the United States. The AAPM assists its members to advance medicine and patient care through education, scientific research, and professional practice. As a volunteer-led organization, it offers opportunities for professional growth and networking. The AAPM develops and maintains scientific and clinical resources that define technical procedures, professional practice, and provide educational content. Membership offers access to many scientific and online technical publications. AAPM provides national and regional meetings throughout the year for learning and collaboration with peers and vendors.
- MPAs may be interested in the following regular member benefits:
- Full access to the AAPM website and Newsletter
- Online Learning Center and Virtual Library
- Opportunities for continuing education credits
- Reduced fees for AAPM meetings
- Free access to RSNA meetings
- Access to medical/health physics related journals, reports, practice guidelines, and technical standards
- Membership directory
- Career services
- Annual professional survey
- Government and regulatory advocacy
Market analysis
Because MPAs work in a variety of environments, come from a variety of training backgrounds, and do not currently participate in an MPA-specific professional organization in the United States, AHMPA did not have a baseline estimate of the number of MPAs working in the various medical physics subspecialties. At the time of writing (December 2020), the AAPM identified five MPAs in its membership as Associates; other working MPAs may qualify for other membership categories. AHMPA decided to develop an MPA survey to ascertain the potential number of MPAs interested in the AAPM.
As part of the introduction, the AHMPA, with AAPM HQ staff assistance, created an informational flyer explaining what the AAPM is and the roles and possible benefits an MPA might receive when joining. [2020.AHMPA.Flyer attached, available at https://w3.aapm.org/media/index.php on the right, informational flyers] Similarly, AHMPA, with AAPM HQ staff assistance, created a comprehensive online survey (QuestionPro Survey Software; https://www.questionpro.com/) to collect key demographics, such as education, years of experience, location, and clinical area of responsibility. Additionally, the survey requested that the MPAs rank and order desired benefits the AAPM can offer. Finally, the survey aimed to capture the respondent’s current AAPM membership status, where applicable, or to determine if the individual would be interested in joining and volunteering within the AAPM.
In lieu of distributing the request to the entire AAPM membership, the AHMPA instead focused on a targeted email distribution that included both the flyer and the survey (accessible by an Internet link or QR code). AHMPA distributed its survey to three main groups of medical physicists that were identified as likely having MPAs as well as to multiple organizations that potentially have a large subset of their membership who are performing MPA duties, yet do not know about the role of an MPA or the AAPM:
Academic – Medical Physics Departments, Division, or Programs that might have robust QC programs already employing MPAs (via the AAPM Management of Medical Physics Programs and Departments (MMPPD));
- Consulting – Consulting groups are a known employer of MPAs who might not have heard of the AAPM;
- Heavy Ion Therapy centers – have large numbers of MPAs that assist with QC and testing;
- American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT) [https://www.asrt.org/];
- Canadian Organization of Medical Physicists (COMP/CCPM) [https://comp-ocpm.ca/];
- Organization of Medical Physics Associates of Canada (OMPAC) [https://ompac.ca/].
Survey results
The survey was open between November 4, 2020 and December 21, 2020. The survey was viewed 423 times, with 100 participants starting the survey, 81 respondents completing the survey and 19 participants that did not complete the survey. The average time of survey completion was 9 minutes. Of the respondents, 15 (18%) stated they were already members of the AAPM and 50 (59%) indicated they would be interested in learning more about volunteering on an AAPM committee if they were to join AAPM.
The respondents each identified their five most desired benefits of AAPM membership. The following is a list of those benefits, ranked in order, with the total number of times each benefit was selected indicated in parentheses:
- Continuing education – online and at AAPM local/national meetings (68)
- Access to medical/health physics related publications, journals, reports, guidelines (57)
- MPA career/job opportunities (56)
- Support an MPA credentialing process (48)
- Foster MPA community and network (42)
- Member directory of MPAs and MPs (36)
- MPA professional surveys including salaries (35)
- Access to AAPM website and newsletter (31)
- Opportunities to present at AAPM local/national meetings (13)
- Venue to interact with vendors at AAPM local/national meetings (11)
- Volunteer opportunities to help improve health through medical physics (11)
The AAPM has an established record of providing benefits for its members for the high importance topics identified in the survey. One exception to this was the identification of "Support an MPA credentialing process", which does not exist at the time of this writing. Generating an MPA credentialing process would require effort within the AAPM to implement, and could be a potential goal for a future MPA-specific group to investigate.
The survey also requested that the respondents characterize various umbrella topics on a 1 – 4 Likert scale of importance: not important (1); somewhat important (2); very important (3); or urgently important (4). This aims to exhibit the perceived importance of professional development for personal growth. The following list ranks, in descending order, the average importance score of each topic presented in the survey:
- Quality (3.35)
- Safety (3.25)
- Education (3.24)
- Equipment performance evaluation (3.2)
- Clinical services (2.91)
- Informatics (2.79)
- Leadership (2.73)
- Administrative (2.16)
The results related to professional development opportunities for growth are consistent with the MPA role and responsibilities in the various subfields of medical physics. Again, these are categories AAPM already provides for its current members. The full survey results are provided at the end of this report. {see attached}
Risk assessment
As previously stated, MPAs not having a centralized organization in the United States represents an opportunity for AAPM. Engaging MPAs would benefit AAPM as an organization by contributing three AAPM strategic plan goals:
- SG02E - Gain greater understanding of current and future member needs.
- SG02F - Expand the membership of AAPM.
- SG03D - Maintain and enhance AAPM's position as the leader in medical physics nationally.
If the AAPM is able to attract members, it benefits from the diversity of its membership to enhance the science, education, and professional activities and offerings. This enables AAPM to continue to be the eminent leader in providing medical physics services, through education, standardization, and scientific support. Increasing MPA membership in the AAPM will provide an additional dues revenue, as well as potential meeting registration revenue. If AAPM is able to provide necessary continuing education credits then there is the possibility for further online learning revenue.
Current AAPM QMP members that work with MPAs would also benefit from MPA membership in the AAPM. These include, but are not limited to educational and training opportunities, which could potentially reduce the training burden of supervising QMPs. Access to AAPM resources would ensure that those resources are correlated with MPA goals due to the similar nature of the work, thereby having the potential to elevate the field due to common training and standardization of assigned tasks, as well as normalizing the working relationship between MPAs and QMPs. The standardization of MPA education will enable MPAs to have transferable skills to offer multiple employers, increasing the ability for MPAs to change jobs as the opportunities arise.
While MPAs work closely with QMPs, and their interests are aligned with AAPM, other organizations may be interested in MPAs joining them. Other professional organizations are facing the same financial risks due to the impact of healthcare economics on their respective members. One response to weather uncertainty is to expand appropriate membership and related-service offerings. While this may include expanding into the international market for the given profession, there is the opportunity to become attractive to a segment of healthcare employees rather than competing with other organizations. Currently, MPAs in Canada may belong to OMPAC, an organization that was established in 2009 to primarily defend MPA professional issues in Canada. They provide resources, surveys, and physics associates meeting opportunities, holding its annual meeting during COMP/CCPM Annual Scientific Meeting, as well as providing an online community for members. OMPAC’s strength is their 11-year experience and established community. As an organization, AAPM has greater volunteer resources at its disposal.
Some MPAs in Canada may or may not also have COMP/CCPM membership. COMP/CCPM is a similar professional medical physics organization to AAPM that has MPA members. As such, they have experience and a community available to interested members. It is yet to be seen whether they would reach out to MPAs in the USA, or whether USA-based MPAs would seek membership outside the USA. The American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT) is an organization that was established in 1922 to provide credentials in medical imaging, interventional procedures, and radiation therapy to radiologic technologists, while the ASRT was established in earlier in 1920. ARRT prepares individuals for working in the field through testing and certification while ASRT provides continuing education, advocacy and fosters a community for its members. However, neither organization currently provides credentials to members that perform MPA-specific duties, and in June 2018, ARRT discontinued the Quality Management (QM) Credentials for just over 1,200 of its members. ARRT currently has over 340,000 members who hold over 540,000 certifications, and is actively engaged in its membership. The ARRT has recently opened a comment period about their QM Credentials so they may get feedback regarding the outdated registration exam.
Marketing and sales plan
AHPMA, in collaboration with the AAPM HQ staff, have already created the MPA brochure. Additionally, AHMPA with the permission of AAPM may share the survey results with survey respondents and initially targeted- emailed individuals. The goal would be to loop back to participants not only with the survey results, but if appropriate, with a link to the AAPM membership application. There are also opportunities to target MPAs more broadly, if approved, through the use of social media, such as AAPM’s Facebook page, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter accounts. This could be expanded to other professional organizations that are sources of MPAs, such as ASRT and American Institute of Physics. Similarly, any MPA subcommittee could devise a marketing and social media plan to provide to AAPM HQ staff initially, and over time (after subcommittee growth) take over appropriately. Primarily the marketing will be initially targeted but organic. Ideally metrics will be able to be tracked.
Milestones
- Brochure / awareness - prepared
- Membership category creation / cost / benefits
- Subcommittee formation - prepared
Team
The AHMPA recommends creating a new MPA subcommittee within Professional Council under Clinical Practice Subcommittee. The MPA subcommittee would also benefit from having some AHMPA member crossover to help MPA subcommittee members become familiar with AAPM committee structure, governance, etc. Additionally, other committees within the AAPM were identified for potential MPA volunteer participation that included:
- Clinical Practice (PICR) (Professional Council)
- Medical Physics Education of Allied Health Professionals (TT) [Education Council]
- Radiography and Fluoroscopy Subcommittee (SCRF) [Science Council]
- Working Group on External Beam Quality Assurance (WGEBQA) [Science Council]
- Work Group on Particle Beams (WGPB) [Science Council]
Given the AAPM is a volunteer-led organization, the costs to create a subcommittee are negligible. MPA subcommittee members would volunteer time to identify appropriate projects to meet its charges and goals of MPAs. Like other subcommittee costs, any MPA subcommittee would need to submit budget requests to its parent committee for budget approval in the regular annual budgeting process, such as for an in-person meeting other than regularly scheduled subcommittee meetings at the AAPM Annual, RSNA, etc... Given the survey results, the only real potential expense would relate to investigating and potentially creating a credentialing program, as well as staff- related costs. This would require its own business plan to be submitted and reviewed within the AAPM for approval. The rest of the MPA member benefits should be covered by revenues paid by MPA members either through dues, meeting registrations, or other educational credit offerings.
AHMPA believes AAPM may earn more income if more MPAs joined the AAPM. MPAs are part of the Associate membership category, paying a dues rate of 55% of Associate member dues. For 2021, the MPA Associate members pay $268. While five MPAs were identified in the AAPM membership, another ten may be currently Full members or members under another membership category. However, the following table provides a range of income from dues:
| Number of MPAs | Annual Dues | Total Dues Income |
| 15 | $268 | $4,020 |
| 8 | $268 | $12,864 |
| 80 | $268 | $21,440 |
Similarly, AAPM may earn more income if more MPAs participated in educational offerings, either AAPM meetings or other educational offerings. Currently the CEUs in the Online Learning Center are not approved for ASRT, ARRT, or AAMD credits; but if those credits can be approved, this could have the potential to add $75 per MPA who selects to add this to their membership (not tallied in the table above, but could add up to $6,000 at the maximum number MPAs in the table). The only uncertainty would be additional continuing education credit review not otherwise completed by AAPM staff or volunteers.
| MPA meeting attendees | Virtual Mtg Reg Fee | Total Mtg Reg Income |
| 15 | $400 | $6,000 |
| 48 | $400 | $19,200 |
| 80 | $400 | $32,000 |
Per AAPM standard practice, AHMPA recommends FINCOM would be best suited to calculating any formal break-even analysis. Regardless of the direct and indirect costs currently identified, AAPM is already operationally organized for its current membership. The resources and effort required to implement MPAs may be worthwhile, particularly given the intangible benefits to including more MPAs within AAPM due to alignment.
Finance
There is no perceived additional funding required to implement expanding MPA membership into the AAPM as AAPM HQ staff costs are similar to current process, and the remainder would be volunteer effort. No additional outside resources have been identified as necessary.
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