NHC Communications Affinity Group: Networking, Sharing Ideas, Addressing Challenges

By Jennifer Schleman, NHC Senior Director, Marketing, Communications & Public Relations

Made up of the senior public relations and communications professionals from the National Health Council’s member organizations, the Communications Affinity Group meets twice a year to share best practices and discuss communications issues of common concern.

This year, the CAG met in April to talk about what organizations are doing to address health care spending and costs, specifically communications-related challenges in addressing cost, including how to bring all stakeholders into the dialogue. NHC’s Vice President of Policy and Government Affairs Eric Gascho and I reviewed the NHC’s Policy Proposals for Reducing Health Care Costs and the successes and challenges the NHC has had since its launch last year.

The second meeting this year was on Sept. 27. With just five weeks until the mid-term elections, we brought together the CAG and the Government Relations Affinity Group (GRAG) to evaluate and explain likely election scenarios and describe their potential impact on issues such as the future of the Affordable Care Act and drug pricing reforms. GRAG, another NHC affinity group that we will explore in a future blog post, is made up of the senior government relations staff at NHC members.

Each meeting begins with a lunch to give attendees the opportunity to informally network.  If you are an NHC member and are interested in joining the CAG, please email me.