First, I would like to thank you for the honor of leading our organization for the next two years and to introduce myself to those of you who do not know me. My name is Niles Lundt and I am the Team Leader for cardiac rehab at St. Mary's Medical Center in Knoxville. I have been a member of TACVPR for 17 years and have been a member of the Board in various positions for approximately 10 years. I am an exercise physiologist and hold BS and MS degrees from Iowa MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT Letter From The President Niles Lundt Ph.D. It was great to see so many of you at our fall conference in Nashville. Thanks for your support of our organization! Dianne Davenport and her staff at Saint Thomas Hospital once again did an excellent job putting on our fall meeting. Thanks Dianne. We appreciate all that you do each year for our fall conference. It has been beneficial for TACVPR to have held both fall and spring meetings in 2007. It is a pattern that we plan to continue. Our organization is more financially sound and we as members have been provided with many excellent opportunities to network and learn. For example, we were provided with a wealth of practical information to help us improve our programs and better serve our patients at the fall conference. Former TACVPR President Dr. Don Shaw provided us with "Seven Essential Considerations for Successful Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation Programs" and "Keep Them Coming Back: Motivating Your Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation Clientele". It was great to see Don again and hear his words of wisdom! Dr. W. Evans Kemp also provided us with an excellent update of the "Latest Advances in Treating Heart Disease". Although the Pulmonary and Cardiac Rehabilitation Act of 2007 has suffered a recent setback by not being included in the compromise Medicare bill, AACVPR urges us to continue to support the bill (S. 329 and HR. 552) by contacting our representatives in Congress. AACVPR encourages us to view this setback as only a delay, not as a defeat. Please support your profession by getting involved. Allan Lewis continues to provide our organization with great representation on legislative and reimbursement issues. Please go to the AACVPR website or contact Allan for more information. Finally, don't forget to check our website (tacvpr.com) often. Please contact Mark Bedwell, our webmaster, with any information that you would like to have added to our site. Also, we are excited to be holding the first TACVPR conference ever held in Knoxville this coming April. Our spring meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at the University of Tennessee Medical Center. Please mark your calendars and plan to attend! Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2008! Niles May 15th, 2007 Greetings. It was a pleasure to see many of you at our spring conference. Thanks for attending! Tami Conner, her staff, and the folks at Cookeville Regional Medical Center did a great job putting on an excellent meeting. Thanks Tami. One of my goals for TACVPR is to improve communication and better serve the membership by holding both spring and fall meetings. Our recent meeting highlighted some of the benefits provided by meeting together on a regular basis. In addition to the networking time that we were able to share, we were provided with some very important information. Dr. Dan Duvall's Medicare update was very informative and timely considering the change to the Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) system in 2009. I hope that many of you found his comments to be encouraging! Dr. Duvall also reported on the pending request to CMS to develop a National Coverage Determination (NCD) for pulmonary rehabilitation. He indicated that a response is expected sometime in the next few months. Please remember that AACVPR is asking us all to strongly support the Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehabilitation Act of 2007 (S. 329 and HR. 552) by contacting our representatives in Congress. Please support our profession by getting involved! Allan Lewis has done a great job representing our organization on legislative and reimbursement issues. Thanks Allan! Please go to the AACVPR website or contact Allan for more information. Finally, welcome to the 10 new members who joined at our spring conference. Thanks for making our organization stronger. Please remember to check our website (tacvpr.com) often. Our webmaster, Mark Bedwell, is planning some updates. Contact Mark with any information that you would like to have added to our site. Our fall conference will be held on Thursday, November 29 at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville. Please mark your calendars. Our spring 2008 meeting will be held in Knoxville. Thanks for your support of our organization! Niles First, I would like to thank you for the honor of leading our organization for the next two years and to introduce myself to those of you who do not know me. My name is Niles Lundt and I am the Team Leader for cardiac rehab at St. Mary's Medical Center in Knoxville. I have been a member of TACVPR for 17 years and have been a member of the Board in various positions for approximately 10 years. I am an exercise physiologist and hold BS and MS degrees from Iowa State University and a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. My focus for the next two years will center on providing enhanced communication and service to all TACVPR members. To that end, I have the following 3 goals: 1. To maintain and continue to improve our quarterly newsletter. Bethany White has done a great job with our newletter and it is our goal to continue to make it a valuable resource for all members. Please help us by submitting articles and information to Bethany. 2. To maintain and continue to improve our website - tacvpr.com. Mark Bedwell is webmaster for our site. Mark has some great ideas on how to improve the site and make it more useful to the membership. However, we need your help. Please check the site often and provide Mark with articles and information for the site that will be beneficial to us all. 3. Hold fall and spring meetings. Thanks to Tami Conner, we are having a meeting Spring 2007! The meeting will be held on April 15-16 at Cookeville Regional Medical Center. Thanks to Dianne Davenport, we will be having our Fall 2007 meeting at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville on November 13. Please mark your calendars and check the website and newsletter for more information. Thanks for your support and I look forward to working with you all! Niles |