CPCA Connected Community Launches for Peer Networks:
New Communication Platform Makes it Easy to Connect with Peers and Share Resources!
CPCA Members have access to multiple peer forums, which provide networking and educational opportunities for community health center professionals. These peer networks provide an opportunity to exchange valuable information, share best practices and templates, and provide feedback into state association activities, policies, and training programs. CPCA staff now support 16 of these peer networks, which host over 2,600 member health center staff on an on-going basis through email communications, regular conference calls and webinars, and some in-person convenings.
As our peer network communities have grown in size, the breadth and complexity of the topics have also grown. For the past couple of years, CPCA staff have recognized the need for more real-time access to your knowledgeable peers, information and updates, as well as a way to communicate and disseminate information and resources.
In November, we launched a new online community hosted by Higher Logic, called CPCA Connected Community, which will connect health center staff with their peers and CPCA program staff to provide technical assistance, and create networking opportunities. Higher Logic is a marketing automation and online community software that supports associations globally.
Connected Community Functionality: Look what it can do!
Each peer network will have its own private community. It will provide a space for members to post questions, access a library of documents, resources, and templates, and develop more meaningful relationships with health center peers outside their own organization. This cloud-based program has a smart search engine, to make it easier to search and see if discussions or resources related to a topic have already been shared within the community.
Access to communities will be seamless once a member has logged in to the CPCA website. Members can update their profile and adjust their settings so they can either receive one daily digest email summarizing all the discussion that took place the previous day, or elect to have real time notifications and receive an email anytime a message is posted to the community. Members can “respond to all” directly through their email without having to enter the site, and their response will be recorded to the discussion boards.
Welcome to a New Era in Communication at CPCA
In the coming months, members will start to experience a shift within the peer network as all information and resources begin to collect in the community. Members will have to access the community to receive the links to join your webinars or conference calls, receive copies of the agendas, or post call notes, as well as follow-up discussions. This will be a shift for the CPCA staff as well.
We know that in this era, some can become weary of the technical advances, and we are striving to make this as seamless as possible. We are excited to bring more value to your membership by offering this new platform to network with your peers. Other associations have said that the Connected Communities by Higher Logic is now ranked as one of the most highly used and valuable member benefits, and it is our hope that this will be the same for us. Watch soon for the mobile app component to become available shortly after our launch, so members will be able to access any content from anywhere!