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By Mark W. Steffen, CRA, FAHRA
One of the perks of being the design team chair for the 2014 Spring Conference held this past April in San Antonio, TX was being able to interview potential speakers and select topics that would interest the membership. One such session, “Positioning for Positive Personal Potential,” was presented by my fellow RACC commissioner, Bruce W. Hammond, CRA. In his session, Bruce encouraged each of us to develop our own brands, either professional or personal, and showed us how we could accomplish this.
As I was listening to his presentation, I checked off some of his suggestions. LinkedIn? Check! Facebook? Check (for personal postings only though!). Twitter? No! I was familiar with the concept but didn’t really understand the value it could bring to my personal brand. Bruce raised an issue during the presentation: if you “Googled” your name, would you come to the top of the search? Interestingly enough, a search of “Mark W. Steffen” would bring me to the top, but “Mark Steffen” would not. If I wanted to establish a personal brand, I needed to find a way to accomplish this. So after Bruce’s presentation, my Twitter account of @markwsteffen was created!
I continue to learn the correct etiquette on how to post, but most of my tweets are just re-tweets of others. However, I do have a following, including the presidents of two the Advocate hospitals!
If you are interested in hearing more about establishing your personal brand, there is good news! Bruce will be presenting again at the Annual Meeting in Washington, DC in August. I would encourage you to attend his session if this is a topic you are interested in.
Besides Bruce’s presentation, I do want you to remind all CRAs of the CRA Reception on Monday, August 11 after Monday’s sessions. You can meet the newest RACC commissioner, Bette Drescher, make new CRA connections, and reconnect with old CRA friends.
Finally, I would like to congratulate the 60 individuals that passed the CRA exam in the month of May! The total number of CRAs is now 1,078 with 23 additional CRA-Retired. In early 2013, the RACC discussed the importance of effectively communicating the value of CRA certification and set a goal of achieving CRA certification of 20% of the entire AHRA membership by June 2014. I am proud to announce that with our newest CRAs that goal has been met!
To those of you who are CRAs, congratulations on holding this mark of distinction, and thank you for your commitment to excellence in imaging administration. To those of you who are not yet CRAs, let me challenge you to make 2014 the year you earn the CRA credential and become a CRA!
Mark W. Steffen, CRA, FAHRA is the director of physician practice management at Advocate Medical Group in Des Plaines, IL. He can be reached at mark.steffen@advocatehealth.com.
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