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By Gerald Glandon, PhD posted 07-19-2018 11:41

  

Vitality from Annual Meeting

The recently completed Annual Meeting in Philadelphia continued AUPHA’s long tradition of creating excitement and value from three days of networking, learning, and even some fun. Extra this year was a celebration of AUPHA’s 70th year. The theme for the Annual Meeting, “Looking Back to Look Forward” contributed a perfect environment within which to celebrate the 70th year. Among the many special events was the “birthday” cake (see below) and the release of a book outlining aspects of the history of AUPHA titled, “Looking Back to Look Forward: AUPHA at 70.” The contents of the book will give everyone an incentive to look inward at where we have been as we contemplate our collective future. The future does look promising as membership continues to expand, meeting attendance grows, engagement in our virtual network continues to expand, and AUPHA is on sound financial footing. We unveiled the first of our health administration branding videos during the meeting to help get our message to the outside world. Electronic versions of the book and the video are availabe to all members on the Member Only page. Members must be logged in to access this content.

The Annual Meeting Planning Committee, led by Mark Diana, should be congratulated for putting the program together. We had outstanding attendance at 368 for Philadelphia and 51 individuals attended for the first time. Thank you all for coming for the education, networking, and celebration. As I indicated last year, despite the great attendance, most of our 2500 faculty in member programs were unable to attend. I want everyone to consider making an effort to attend next year by giving you some idea of what you missed.

The wide variety of events offered during the Annual Meeting did not come about by chance but were designed to meet the needs and interests of you, our diverse membership. The challenge has always been to find that combination of activities, events, and engagement opportunities that provide value for everyone. This was successful this year again because we offered different types of sessions. First, many attendees found the keynote sessions of great interest because they all focused upon the looking forward aspect of our meeting theme. The Pattullo Lecture on the first day set the stage by challenging us to “Get Ahead Of The Curve.” Dr. Filerman suggests that due to the fundamental changes coming for healthcare, we all “need to nurture the professional ethos that will equip the student to succeed as a moral agent engaging the unprecedented moral and ethical challenges.” A fundamental challenge that we need to address head on. On Friday morning, Cynthia Washington, Interim President & CEO of the Institute for Diversity and Health Equity, proposed an equally compelling challenge. She outlined the case for equity, diversity, and inclusion in healthcare and provided some specific activities and steps that we can all take to support these initiatives. Finally, Dr Anthony Colettaclosed the Annual Meeting with a presentation entitled “Leading by Innovation: Transforming Health Care.” Again, this presentation contained a compelling case for and real examples of the fundamental changes needed within our healthcare system.

For other attendees, however, the many small sessions and posters with core content was the most valuable portion of the Annual Meeting. In this category were 32 individual presentations and 39 posters. The presentations included educational sessions, deep dives, or conversation and collaboration sessions. These varied widely in terms of topics but there were multiple presentations related to interprofessional education, innovation, competency assessment, pedagogy and engagement with online/distance education. These presentations were delivered by 71 individuals and the posters involved another 83 faculty members.

As in the past, some attendees were mainly focused on the targeted work of the Faculty Forums because of their focused research and/or teaching interests. It is great to engage with remote colleagues that you dialogue with all year and put a face to a name or renew past contacts.

Finally, some folks appear to most prefer the receptions, breakfasts/lunches, tours and yoga. Networking throughout the Annual Meeting is a valuable activity. Some of this engagement is purely social but future working relationships begin over a diet coke during the reception or coffee at breakfast.

Naturally, many engage with all of these options and go home totally drained and sleep deprived. Next year the Annual Meeting will be in New Orleans June 12 -14. It will not celebrate a milestone birthday but will be another outstanding event in a great location. I want everyone to consider making an effort to participate and attend next year. As usual, the program will be created by the efforts of the Annual Meeting Planning Committee led by Leigh Cellucci. This committee is creative and hard working. I am sure there will be exceptional keynote speakers, outstanding content, surprises and lagniappe.

Finally, I want to remind everyone that on March 5, 2019, the Graduate Program and Practitioner Workshop will be held in Chicago. This one-day event gives a glimpse of challenges and solutions program face and has the benefit of a keynote speaker jointly sponsored by ACHE and AUPHA. The tentative theme this year will address the “soft skills” so vital to our students’ success. This year we are also planning some special student programming associated with the GPPW. Bring your boots and gloves and join us in early March in Chicago.

Have a great summer.

Jerry

 70th Anniversary Cake

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