IHERO 2008-06-11 Minutes

Minutes from 2:00-3:00 Eastern Time, June 12, 2008 Teleconference

1. Welcome and Roll Call Colin Field, May Wahab, Malcolm Wright, Ulrich Beifuss (Brainlab), Robyn Watson, Charles Able, Richard Popple, Zhe Chen,

2. Review past ASTRO IHE-RO budgets.

• There is a significant increase in 2008 traveling budget in comparison to past years due to the connectathon and out of country domain profile Pretesting.
• ASTRO’s contribution to IHE-RO in 2008 is $ 238,909.
• 2008 revenue includes the connectathon participation fee.
• Non DC area Technical Committee Meeting did not take place in 2008.
• The 2008 test tool development budget and public demonstration budget were considered low.
• There is no travel budget for Public Demonstration. According to Dr. Watson, ASTRO does not cover its members’ travel expense to attend the ASTRO Annual Meeting. However, it can be added in the future budget if outside funding is available

3. Project costs for next 3 years Travel Expense

• There will be no non DC area Technical committee meeting. Travel expense includes expenses from the domain profile preTesting, connectathon and public demonstration.
• 10% increase in travel cost is estimated.

Domain Profile Pretesting (Technical Committee Meeting)

• Prepared budget for four members to attend the pretesting outside the US. Since all other IHE-RO activities are taken place in the US, the pretesting is held in Europe so that it reduces traveling for the European vendors.
• ASTRO staff will not attend this meeting.

Connectathon (Technical and Planning Committee Meeting)

• Prepared budget for 10 members including 2 ASTRO staff.

Public Demonstration

• Added travel budget for four members.

Telephone Cost

• Web conferences, Go to meetings, are covered by the ASTRO IT budget.
• Approximately 3 calls a month was estimated.
• 10% increase in cost was added to each year.

Postage and delivery

• There is no mailing involved in the IHE-RO activities. Therefore, this item is not included in the budget.

Professional Services

• Professional services cover a test tool developing and licensing cost.
• A test tool developing vendor will be contacted for its estimated cost.

Meeting expenses

• This includes cost for conference room, food, and booth.
• The number of attendees for the meetings during the ASTRO Annual meeting was kept similar to the 2008.
• Budget for booth was increased to cover other expenses such as giveaways.

Overhead expenses

• This includes ASTRO staff salaries.

4. Finance

• When ASTRO sponsored the IHE-RO in 2004, it was ASTRO’s understanding that the IHE-RO will be self-sufficient within 5 years. IHE-RO has until 2010 to be financially neutral. However, ASTRO will continue to support IHE-RO initiative.
• Possible ways of funding IHE-RO:

• National and international societies and organizations
• Corporate sponsors
• ASTRO

• Firstly, the task group needs to estimate outside funding. Once outside funding is known, the remaining budget request can be made to the ASTRO Board.
• The task group discussed the three tiered fee system. This will include fee for utilization of test tool, connectathon participation and public demonstration participation. Mr. Curran and Dr. Swerdloff will be consulted further on this issue.

5. Discuss IHE-RO participation in the IHE Webinar (see http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pWLtiln6-Dt6ivPmY0pFDLg&inv=ihe-cochairs@googlegroups.com&t=6575795281187134344&guest

• Mr. Field has volunteered to work on webinar. It is a 15 minutes presentation on IHE-RO which will take place on June 17th at 9:45 – 10:00 AM. (see: http://wiki.ihe.net/index.php?title=Image:IHE_RO_Planning_Committee_Webinar_Presentation.ppt

6. Next Meeting)

• Thursday, July 10, 2008 at 2:00-3:00 PM EDT