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By Gerald Glandon, PhD posted 10-17-2017 11:05

  

Focus on the Future

As we begin to think about the end of calendar year 2017, our entrance into 2018 and the beginning of AUPHA’s 70th year brings much excitement. A single event such as the 2018 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia with a theme of Looking Back to Look Forward will be the high point of the year’s festivities but many other activities will lead contribute to the celebration. The just completed Undergraduate Workshop with its theme Unique Challenges of Preparing Students for the 21st Century Healthcare Industry demonstrated clearly how future oriented AUPHA has become in everything we do. The keynote speakers and the many outstanding sessions provided insight about the future and how best to get students ready for that future. This Workshop started us on the yearlong examination of what we are and what we do. 

For those unable to attend, you missed great content. Michael Mayo, President of Baptist Medical Center in Jacksonville, treated the attendees to an exceptional presentation. He started the workshop with Bridging Classroom Knowledge to Leadership Success. His senior position and years of experience gave him the ability and credibility to make the path to leadership in much more in focus. We learned that there is no single path forward and staying on course is not easy. The narrative he presented largely reinforced how our programs seek to identify, prepare and launch talent. This, coming from a senior leader, was reassuring.  At noon of the first day, Lisa Cannata, Director, Training Organizational Readiness for the Adventist Health System, gave us a clear understanding of the challenges of securing an array of talent necessary for today’s direct care provision and middle management levels. She is a senior healthcare leader but earlier in her career. She also came to healthcare leadership from the hospitality industry. She provided a mini-career perspective on how we are doing. Again, much of the message was familiar but as Mr. Mayo had done in the morning, she put an interesting spin on the ideas.  Finally, Nadir Bakali, Manager, Value Based Care at Orlando Health, discussed Shaping Healthcare’s Next Generation of Leaders.  He provided an interesting perspective from the point of view of a recent graduate who just completed his fellowship.  Together, the three keynote speakers framed the “unique challenges” we face that provided context for presentations by AUPHA members.

The “In the Round,” Ignite, mini sessions and full education sessions covered many of the topics relevant to the challenges we face and all used what we learned in the past with the intent to inform for the future. We cannot highlight every session in this blog and nobody was able to attend each of the sessions. It seemed, however, that some general subjects emerged. Naturally, given the theme of the workshop, several sessions focused specifically on future scenarios. There were also several with a direct focus on technology or techniques (interactive trading platforms, program evaluation/improvement model, college bowl). It seemed also that we had a focus on how best to impart the soft skills necessary for students to succeed in the professional world. Finally, there was great interest in understanding the healthcare education culture with an examination of the necessary competencies and collaborating with others in healthcare education.

Nothing makes the value of these small, targeted programs clearer than the engagement, questions and input from the participants throughout. I think that everyone carried home broad concepts as well as specific applications and tools. We all had great alternatives throughout the Workshop that allowed us to focus on those presentations most relevant to our current needs and/or interests. The content alone was sufficient to make the Workshop a success but if you add the networking and sharing that occurred during the receptions, meals and coffee breaks, the value added was most clear. In particular, the opening reception at the hotel on Thursday and Friday’s “Networking Knight” hosted by the University of Central Florida night care were great events.

With all of the uncertainty that has enveloped healthcare lately, we must keep a focus more than ever on our core values as we look to the future: learning, collaboration, excellence and innovation. AUPHA seeks to uphold these values in everything we do and with the help of our members, we do a good job generally. The country has moved away from valuing and incorporating dimensions of diversity within our healthcare and political environments, however. Because of this, the organizations and individuals responsible for preparing future leaders of healthcare, e.g. AUPHA members, must double down and learn how best to address challenges we still face in this country with diversity. We must learn from each other how to have crucial conversations with our students regarding those external forces and policies that pull us apart. We must also understand that good health depends upon more than healthcare. Consequently, the Graduate Program and Practitioner Workshop in March in Chicago will address who is we of “We the People…” Our responsibility to make quality healthcare accessible to everyone implies we must address all aspects of diversity and inclusion effectively with our students. Our keynote speaker will be Dr. David Nash, an international expert who understands the importance of social determinants of health and advocates for public accountability for health outcomes.

I hope that the quarter is going well. See you in March in Chicago and/or June in Philadelphia

 

Jerry

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