Advisory Council: Thanking outgoing members and seeking nominations for new members

Dear Colleagues,

This summer, the terms of five members of NAQC’s Advisory Council will end. These members include:

• Mary Anne Bright, RN, MN, National Cancer Institute
• Karen Brown, MPA, Michigan Department of Community Health
• Michael Cummings, PhD, MPH, Medical University of South Carolina
• Stephen Michael, MS, Arizona Smokers’ Helpline
• Dawn Wiatrek, PhD, American Cancer Society

I would like to thank them for their generous service and congratulate them on their exceptional work. During their tenure on the Advisory Council, they contributed to a number of important quality improvement reports, including A Framework for Improving Tobacco Quitline Quality in North America, Measuring Quit Rates, Measuring Reach, Integrating Tobacco Control Medications in State and Provincial Quitlines, Call Center Metrics, the Use of Quitlines among Priority Populations in the U.S., and most recently, Quitline Service Offering Models (due to be published this summer).

Over the next month, I will be identifying nominees to fill five vacancies on the Advisory Council. I would greatly appreciate hearing your recommendations. Nominees should be familiar with and/or interested in topics such as quitline quality and operations as well as cessation policy and systems change. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Advisory Council, it is a leadership group comprised of NAQC members. The Council provides advice and guidance on programmatic issues to NAQC’s CEO and staff. Since 2008, the Advisory Council’s priority has been the Quality Improvement Initiative – recommending topics to address, providing feedback to draft issue papers to ensure that they are relevant and not overly burdensome to the field and recommending approval of the issues papers to NAQC. The Council members are appointed by the CEO and serve three-year terms. Members meet three to four time each year (up to twice in-person). A list of current members can be viewed on NAQC’s website.

To nominate yourself or a colleague, please send an email to me at LBailey@NAQuitline.org with the following information:

1. Name and contact information for the nominee

2. Why this person would be a good choice for the Advisory Council

3. A short one-paragraph biographical sketch