Views From AOPA Leadership

AS WE MOVE INTO a new year, I am excited to share with you the results of AOPA’s strategic planning process. Designed with your direct input, the plan will help us advance the O&P profession by clarifying and refining why we exist, our longterm objectives, and the steps we can take to get there together.

Let me start by talking first about our mission—this is why we exist. As we considered your feedback and discussed it as a board last year, we realized that we had an opportunity to better articulate AOPA’s mission in light of how this profession has changed over the past four years. I am therefore pleased to share with you AOPA’s new mission:

A trusted partner, advocating for and serving the orthotic and prosthetic community by: • Fostering relationships with decision makers to ensure equitable access • Providing education that promotes professional excellence • Supporting research that informs innovative care • Advancing equality to strengthen the orthotic and prosthetic profession and improve the lives of patients.

This statement continues to emphasize the three historical pillars of advocacy, research, and education that have always been part of AOPA’s mission. But, critically, it adds the concepts of partnership, service, and equality. We believe this strengthens AOPA’s “why” and more accurately represents where we want and need to take the O&P profession.

Second, our vision is a description of the future. And, again, based on your input and feedback, we have arrived at a simple and powerful new vision for AOPA: A world where orthotic and prosthetic care transforms lives.

This is what makes O&P such a rich and rewarding profession. Together, AOPA’s new mission and vision will serve as our North Star moving forward.

Finally, I’d like to turn to our six strategic priorities that your feedback helped produce. These are the priorities we will focus on over the next three to five years: • Communicating the importance of orthotic and prosthetic care • Increasing patient access to clinically appropriate, evidence-based care • Helping members succeed in the changing healthcare environment • Identifying and influencing trends and learning that may impact orthotics and prosthetics • Enhancing AOPA’s value, engagement, and community • Driving collaboration by creating strategic relationships.

I want to close by thanking the AOPA Board of Directors, staff, and all our members and partners who contributed to this strategic planning process. Your support and dedication were invaluable. And now, as we start this new journey, your collaboration will be equally invaluable. This is a talented, committed, and diverse community.

Please reach out to AOPA if you would like to support our efforts to achieve any of the six strategic focus areas listed above. We want to partner with you. Together, I believe we are well-positioned to achieve our mission and the vision of a world where orthotic and prosthetic care transforms lives.

Dave McGill is president of AOPA.

Specialists in delivering superior treatments and outcomes to patients with limb loss and limb impairment.

President Dave McGill Össur Americas, Foothill Ranch, CA

President-Elect Teri Kuffel, JD Arise Orthotics & Prosthetics, Spring Lake Park, MN

Vice President Mitchell Dobson, CPO Hanger, Austin, TX

Immediate Past President Traci Dralle, CFm Fillauer Companies, Chattanooga, TN

Treasurer Rick Riley O&P Boost, Bakersfield, CA

Executive Director/Secretary Eve Lee, MBA, CAE AOPA, Alexandria, VA

Jeffrey M. Brandt, CPO Ottobock, Exton, PA

Elizabeth Ginzel, MHA, CPO Össur, Fort Worth, TX

Kimberly Hanson, CPRH Ottobock, Austin, TX

John “Mo” Kenney, CPO, FAAOP Kenney Orthopedics, Lexington, KY

Jim Kingsley Hanger Clinic, Oakbrook Terrace, IL

Linda Wise WillowWood, Mount Sterling, OH

Shane Wurdeman, MSPO, PhD, CP, FAAOP(D) Research Chair, Hanger Clinic, Houston Medical Center, Houston, TX

James O. Young Jr., CP, LP, FAAOP Amputee Prosthetic Clinic, Tifton, GA