It is a privilege and an honor to be the 2012 Chapter President/Chair. Our theme this year is FUTURE LEADERSHIP: VISION AND ACTION FOR REALISTIC CHANGE. We invite you to join us and to become a part of our chapter in what we believe will be our best year yet! ACHE- SETC is one of more than 80 chapters that are a part of the American College of Healthcare Executives which is an international professional society of more than 40,000 healthcare executives. ACHE membership helps you excel professionally and advance excellence in healthcare management. Our chapter provides access to quality educational programs, industry resources and networking opportunities. It also provides you, as a leader, the opportunity to contribute and to give back to your profession.   So get involved!    Join or chair a committee, attend our quarterly breakfast meetings, be a part of our spring fling or golf tournament, become a Fellow and by all means attend the ACHE Congress in Chicago. Be that healthcare rock star leader that makes a difference.

Our speaker for the first quarterly breakfast meeting in March will be John Nance. John will speak to the future of healthcare and what successful leaders will need to know to lead successfully. At the second quarterly meeting in June we will bring you non healthcare leaders to share with us their visions of future leadership from their respective industries. The September third quarterly meeting will feature a CEO roundtable with  CEO’s from outside the state of Texas. ACHE SETC membership has told us that they would like to hear what other non Texas healthcare leaders are doing in respect to healthcare reform and governmental changes. At our final fourth breakfast meeting in November we are going to have some fun and have a getting-to-know-you adventure. The chapter will have healthcare leaders host a table and every fifteen minutes you will move from table to table to meet these outstanding healthcare leaders. Look for our Spring Fling in the spring and our golf tournament in the fall. Something new that the chapter will be offering this year in Houston, again in response to our member’s request, is the International Conference on Health Systems in October where ACHE members will be able to obtain CEU credits without having to go to Congress or attend out of state clusters.

Please know that we are here to serve you as our members and we can be reached at: Deborah Alsante (iliondara@comcast.net) or our Executive Director, Don Gibson, FACHE (quantumleadership@ache-houston.org; 281- 398-7877). Working together, I am confident that we can define the vision and action for realistic change that will be needed to lead in the future.

Deborah Alsante