An Update from Your Board of Directors

Last month, many SIIM members found themselves in Chicago for the 2022 RSNA annual meeting. For many of us, myself included, it was my first in-person RSNA in 3 years. It was also my first in-person SIIM Board meeting as chair.

I have had the privilege of attending Board meetings as a committee chair or serving on the Board of Directors for most of my tenure as a SIIM member. In that time, I have witnessed SIIM’s dramatic growth and leadership in the imaging informatics community. From international educational initiatives to groundbreaking research innovations and successful collaborations with other informatics societies, all powered by the tireless efforts of our member volunteers, SIIM has become the unquestionable leader in imaging informatics. As your Board of Directors reflected on these accomplishments and looked to the future, we discussed several related efforts that I’d like to share with you.

A New Strategic Plan

Under the leadership of Marc Kohli, MD, our immediate past chair, the Board and committee chairs collaboratively developed a new strategic plan. The four new strategic pillars— Research, Education, Technical Harmonization and a Culture of Belonging —together with the overarching strategies of supporting the Global Community of imaging informatics and achieving sustainable Focus on Growth, will guide SIIM’s initiatives over the next few years. Our committees are actively working on aligning their charters and activities to these new strategies.

Digital Transformation

To support the sometimes meteoric trajectory of SIIM’s growth, the Board recognized the need for and importance of a complete digital transformation. To support this effort, the Board has approved investment in a new digital infrastructure that will harmonize all aspects of SIIM’s operations and help us achieve a more seamless implementation of our strategic plan. A year from now, SIIM will have a new membership database and association management system, new learning management system to support SIIM’s educational mission, and a new website that serves as a “curiosity portal” for both current and future members.

Focus on Growth and Sustainability

As your Board of Directors, we are collectively responsible for putting SIIM’s best interests first in our deliberations and decisions and protecting its financial and human assets. As SIIM’s presence and activity in the imaging informatics community has increased, so has our need for additional staff expertise to support our mission of advancing imaging informatics through innovation, research, and education.

SIIM has managed to weather many challenges these past few years, including the ongoing pandemic, inflation, the great resignation, and more. We had a lengthy discussion in Chicago about how to position ourselves for future success in a financially responsible and sustainable fashion. We identified 3 areas of focus:

1. SIIM Training: expanding training opportunities and offerings both domestically and internationally, to reach imaging informatics professionals who work in all areas of healthcare
2. Philanthropy: under the guidance of our new Philanthropy Committee, exploring unique avenues to support SIIM’s initiatives
3. Membership: as the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine, we encompass imaging specialties across the healthcare enterprise (not just in radiology) and represent a group of individuals that identify with a variety of personas. SIIM’s strength is in its diversity of thought and experience, and we seek to grow our membership to increase that representation across clinical domains and technical areas of expertise.

Looking Ahead

The Board will reconvene for our annual strategic retreat in January at SIIM HQ in Leesburg, to continue our conversations on growth and sustainability, and brainstorm how best to equip our committees–to which many of you belong—for success as they work to advance the strategic plan.

In addition, we hope to see many of you for SIIM 2023 in Austin, Texas, next June. The Program Committee is working hard to develop another phenomenal annual meeting experience.

Thank You

Thank you for everything YOU do on behalf of SIIM. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!