In keeping with the trend of the association’s meetings over the past several years, the June meeting once again surpassed previous meetings in terms of the number of attendees, quantity and quality of proposals, and evaluations that yielded some of the highest ratings the association has ever seen.
From the smallest of meeting details to the content of the sessions, the meeting exceeded the high expectations of attendees. Feedback from first-time attendees and long-time attendees alike, included: “Perhaps the best meeting in terms of content, attendance, and amenities in twenty years”; “The AUPHA meeting makes me want to assume more leadership roles in our MHA program”; “Not only was I energized by what I experienced, the collegiality made me feel so positive!”
The general sessions at the Charleston meeting included the annual HCA Forum and practitioner panel. Uwe Reinhardt, PhD, the James Madison Professor of Political Economics at Princeton University, delivered the 2011 Pattullo Lecture. The opening session featured panelists, Henry Allen, Jr., MPA, JD, senior attorney at the American Medical Association; Regina Herzlinger, PhD of the Harvard Business School; Nathan Kaufman, managing director at Kaufman Strategic Advisors, LLC; Steve Shortell, PhD of the University of California–Berkeley; and Diana Hilberman, DrPH of UCLA as moderator.
The opening general session addressed the creation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). ACOs, while a small portion of the legislation passed last year, have been one aspect of the new law that has garnered much discussion within the healthcare management arena. Hilberman kicked off the session with a humorous but telling video on how some may perceive the formation of, or evolution towards, ACOs, adding to the pressure on those faculty whose job it is to teach the management of healthcare organizations. Shortell put the emphasis on this pressure with his overview of ACOs and what their implications are. After speaking about the words “accountable,” “care,” and “organization,” he explained that the challenge will not be in the lack of capital, or lack of technology. Rather, he explained, “the limiting factor will be lack of leadership,” as a result of all stakeholders in healthcare being housed under the same organization.
Nate Kaufman presented the perspective of physicians, addressing the challenges involved with motivating physicians to clinically integrate in a way that moves us toward the overall goals of an ACO. “I personally don’t believe that the ACO in its current form is going to be lasting….transparency of data will change behaviors and impact quality—this will drive the change. Autonomous, non-accountable care will be a thing of the past,” said Kaufman.
Hertzlinger spoke about the scope of ACOs saying, “ACOs, in my view, are like the infeasible…the rise of everything for everybody means you have to be very big. The most successful delivery networks are huge.” Hertzlinger went on to speak about the ACO impact on risk assessment, and the bundling of services towards this end.
Henry Allen reviewed the legal implications of the ACO, and how they are preparing physicians for the demonstration project due to come in January 2012. He then spoke about how to get physicians involved in larger networks, yet still address the antitrust concerns inherent in joining together many competitors to provide services to the public.
The entire ACO panel and their presentations inspired spirited debate among the attendees, which lasted the entire meeting and beyond, and served as an excellent appetizer for some of the concurrent and general sessions, including the Pattullo Lecture delivered by 2010 Graham Prize Winner Uwe Reinhardt. At once eye-opening and thought-provoking, the also entertaining Professor Reinhardt spoke about efficiency and value in economics, as applied to the field of healthcare. During the course of his presentation, he made the comment, “…we’re almost done with ACO’s, we’re going to beat that to death. You know, I’m sure yesterday that quote [from] Mark Smith defining an ACO as a unicorn, a fantastic animal that can do all kinds of things except no one has ever seen one and I have a different one. An ACO is an organization as close to Kaiser Permanente as it can get without anyone realizing it.”
This year’s HCA Forum featured HCA’s own, Ann Hatcher, CCP, vice president of executive workforce development. Ms. Hatcher was joined by Louis F. Caputo, FACHE, chief executive officer of Summerville Medical Center, and Joe Hill, Jr., vice president of human resources, HCA South Atlantic Division. Interviewed by AUPHA board chair, Peter Fitzpatrick, EdD, RPh of Clayton State University, the Forum guests discussed the practitioner view of what the most pressing personnel issues that the healthcare delivery sector will be facing in the future, and what type of skills, competencies, and even degrees a system like HCA looks for in future healthcare leaders.
The meeting also featured a practitioner panel, with each practitioner giving their perspective on what type of leadership lends itself to award-winning performance, and how best these organizations positions themselves for sustained future performance. The 2011 practitioner panel featured Joan Brennan, DNP, RN, vice president of quality and performance excellence at AtlantiCare; Rob Colones, president and CEO of McLeod Health; and David Fox, MBA, president of Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital.
A new addition to this year’s meeting was the education mini-session. These sessions were just 20 minutes long and each was acutely focused on the given topic. Topics included planning, implementing and evaluating hybrid courses; the role of the executive scholar in the academic community; ideas for teaching and assessing leadership competencies; and incorporating Six Sigma in health administration education.
No AUPHA annual meeting would be complete without the social and award-related events. Barry Greene, PhD, MA, of Iowa University was honored as the 2011 recipient of the Gary L. Filerman Prize for Educational Leadership. Hector Rodriguez, PhD, MPH, of the University of California—Los Angeles was awarded the Thompson Prize for Young Investigators, while the 2011 William B. Graham Prize for Health Services Research was awarded to Edward H. Wagner, MD, MPH of the Group Health Research Institute.
The 2011 Annual Meeting also featured 36 poster presentations. The first place award for best poster went to Carol Molinari, PhD of the University of Baltimore and Mary Helen McSweeney-Feld, PhD of Towson University for their poster entitled, Cultural Competency: An Experiential Capstone Project for Healthcare Management Students. The second place poster was entitled, “Taking It to the Street: Using Community-Based Research to Enhance Student Learning,” by Beth Hogan, PhD of Fayetteville State University. The third place poster prize went to Gouri Gupte, PhD, Boston University; Shamly Austin, PhD, University of Alabama Birmingham; Zo Ramamonjiarivelo, MBA, University of Alabama Birmingham; and Anantachai Panjamapirom, PhD, The Advisory Board for their poster entitled, “Acceptance of Innovative Teaching Tools Among Healthcare Management Educators.
AUPHA is grateful to Health Administration Press for providing the annual prizes for our poster winners.
These are only a few of the high points from the 2011 meeting in Charleston. Meeting presentations, videos of the general sessions, and poster abstracts are now available on the AUPHA Network.
Photos from the Annual Meeting are also available for review.
The 2012 meeting will be held on May 31-June 3, 2012 in Minneapolis, MN. Details will soon be available on the AUPHA Web site.