Each year, the AUPHA Annual Meeting exceeds expectations in terms of the number of attendees, quantity and quality of proposals, and evaluations, and this year did not disappoint. The June meeting attracted a record number 368 attendees from the United States and abroad, the highest number of attendees at any AUPHA Annual Meeting.
This year’s annual meeting not only featured twelve education session, fifteen education mini-sessions, and two education panel session, but was preceded by the first-ever Global Symposium, drawing 60+ attendees, including twenty international attendees from eleven countries. Following a full day of panel sessions and networking, the Global Symposium attendees toured Amplatz Children’s Hospital, Minnesota’s first green childrens hospital, featuring an environmentally-sensitive design, eco-friendly materials, and green spaces such as a healing garden.
A second pre-conference tour to the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation (CFI) was offered as well. Established in 2008, the Center for Innovation, a multidisciplinary center that includes practicing physicians and scientists, along with experts in research and service design, IT, and program management, uses a patient-centered focus to transform the way healthcare is experienced and delivered. Over 40 attendees made the two-hour trek to Rochester, MN for this stimulating tour.
The general sessions at the Minneapolis meeting included the Studer Group Forum and the annual practitioner panel. Ann Bancroft, Polar Explorer, Educator, and Founder of the Ann Bancroft Foundation, delivered the 2012 Pattullo Lecture, which also served as this year’s opening general session.
When one hears the words “embracing transformation,” the theme of the 2012 Annual Meeting, polar exploration may not be the first thing to come to mind, but Bancroft showed how her adventures on the ice could be lessons for the 360+ annual meeting attendees. Bancroft’s first expedition initially took her away from her teaching career and led her to the North Pole with a team of seven men and 49 male dogs, making her the first woman to stand at the top of the world. What seemed like an anticlimactic event as she stood at the top of the world turned into the educational initiative that is the basis of her exploration career with her return to Minneapolis, where she found the arctic and her journey incorporated into every aspect of her school’s curriculum. In 1992, Bancroft began to assemble an all-female team to head to Antarctica. She developed a curriculum and, in the days before internet, she and three other women went to the South Pole, bringing 350,000 kids with them. The curriculum covered geography, math, science, and woman’s issues. Her curriculum development and exploration continued into the 2000s, when she and Liv Arnesen crossed Antarctica. This time, their four curriculums were offered for free on the internet, which allowed their initiative to go global and reach 3 million children. Her upcoming expedition promises to be her biggest as six women from six continents join Bancroft and Arnesen on a journey that will bring the issues of fresh water, health, politics and economics to 50 million children.
This year’s Studer Group Forum featured John Toussaint, MD, Founder and CEO of ThedaCare, Center for Healthcare Value. Interviewed by AUPHA incoming board chair, Sharon Schweikhart, PhD, of Ohio State University, Dr. Toussaint discussed issues such as his experiences with sustainability, leadership, and transformation in his position at ThedaCare. In terms of transformation, Toussaint said, “…it’s critical for organizations and leaders that really are trying to change the whole game in their organization to spend as much time thinking about the transformation, to spend as much time thinking about succession as they’re thinking about transformation cause transformation will go away if you don’t have internal succession. And I think that’s been written about in many leadership books related to the transformational initiatives.” Toussaint also touched on what CEOs are looking for in potential hires.
The meeting also featured a panel hosted by the University of St. Thomas and included Kenneth H. Paulus, President and CEO of Allina Hospitals & Clinics, Ronald J. Smith, Principle & Co-Founder of Frauenshuh HealthCare Real Estate Solutions, and Scott Kozocki, Entrepreneur & Market Manager of mHealth, Verizon Wireless. The panel, moderated by Dan Zismer, PhD of the University of Minnesota and Jack Militello, PhD of the University of St. Thomas, shared their vision of how healthcare delivery will transform into personal and population health, and what skills and talents are needed to create this new health system.
No AUPHA Annual Meeting would be complete without the social and award-related events. Jack Wheeler, PhD, of the University of Michigan was honored as the 2012 recipient of the Gary L. Filerman Prize for Educational Leadership. George Wehby, PhD, of the University of Iowa was awarded the Thompson Prize for Young Investigators, while the 2012 William B. Graham Prize for Health Services Research was awarded to Mark Pauly, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania.
The 2012 Annual Meeting also featured 49 poster presentations. The first place award for best poster went to HITga.me: The Social Media-Based Health IT Video Game, presented by Jonathan DeShazo from Virginia Commonwealth University. The second place poster was entitled, “Taking e-Teaching to the Next Level” by Leonard Friedman, Bianca Frogner, and Andrew Wiss of George Washington University. The third place poster prize went to Pam Paustian and Jonathan Nugent of University of Alabama at Birmingham for their poster entitled, “Transforming Students into Employees: Using Interview Stream in a Human Resources Management Course.” AUPHA is grateful to Health Administration Press for providing the annual prizes for our poster winners.
To read more about the 2012 Annual Meeting, access session information, and to learn more about the 2013 Annual Meeting in Monterey, CA, please visit the AUPHA Annual Meeting page.
Photos from the Annual Meeting are available at: http://2012auphaannualmeeting.shutterfly.com