Jasmeet Dhaliwal, MD, MPH, MBA
President, CO ACEP
As we embark on a new year for Colorado ACEP, I’m honored to take on the role of Chapter President. I’d like to take a moment to express gratitude to Dr. Rebecca Kornas, our Immediate Past-President, for her outstanding leadership over the past year. She guided us through a challenging legislative session, expanded our membership, and fostered critical connections between physicians and legislators. She did a terrific job. Colorado ACEP is also incredibly fortunate to have the support and expertise of Suzanne Hamilton, our Executive Director, and Dan Jablan, our Lobbyist. Their efforts continue to strengthen our Chapter and our ability to advocate for emergency medicine physicians across the state.
The Road Ahead
As we look to the year ahead, we must recognize the evolving landscape of clinical medicine. Healthcare finance and care delivery are changing fast, bringing an array of challenges and opportunities. We must use our collective voice to guide these changes in a way that allows us to continue to provide the highest standard of care to our patients.
Colorado ACEP’s Priorities for the Coming Year
When emergency physicians encounter critically-ill patients, we focus on interventions that matter most – the ABCs. With that in mind our Colorado ACEP priorities this year will also focus on the issues that matter most:
1. Access to High Quality Emergency Care
- Ensure patients can see us despite Medicaid disenrollment, anticipated changes in premium subsidies, and hospital capacity challenges.
- Support the financial viability of all EM practices by advocating for fairer Medicaid reimbursement and out-of-network arbitration.
- Promote transparency in healthcare and prevent unsafe scope-of-practice expansion by non-physician providers.
2. Better Work Environment
- Reduce regulatory burdens that take physicians away from the bedside.
- Combat external interference with the practice of evidence-based medicine.
- Ensure a safe environment for emergency physicians and health care staff.
3. Career Engagement for Recent Graduates and Rural Physicians
- Provide educational and professional development opportunities.
- Engage & empower early career and rural physicians in EM advocacy.
We will, no doubt, have an action-packed legislative session this year. It’s essential that Colorado ACEP continues to be the most reliable and respected specialty voice at the Capitol. To accomplish this, we need your help. Please consider participating in our “calls to action” throughout the year and contributing to the CO ACEP Small Donor Committee. Th committee collects small dollar contributions ($50 or less) and distributes funds to the campaigns of state legislators. The committee contributions are essential to CO ACEP building and sustaining relationships with legislators aligned with our priorities.
Thank you for the opportunity to lead the Chapter this year. I’m excited to see what we can collectively accomplish for our specialty and our patients.