AHIP 2009 - Key to the HC Reform and Trends for the future
I was at the Institute 2009 conducted by AHIP in San Diego. Excellent weather, fantastic people and exciting ambience has now put San Diego on the top of my list for a repeat visit. However these were just added attractions when compared to the seminar. Almost 1400 people attended, 400 odd from the various health plans and the rest were people trying to sell them some solution or services! It was a motley crew of attendees from an Infosys perspective: Clients, Prospects, Potential and current alliance partners, competitors. The booth area was huge and was extremely well designed to manage the flow of people. We had a protest too and the officer assigned to stand guard at the main building entrance spend 15 minutes talking to me about the pros and cons of the various pubs and steakhouses in the Gaslamp Area – but that’s another story.
A lot of political leadership turned up for the show: Jeb Bush, Howard Dean , Tom Daschle , to name a few and all the public policy meetings were jam packed. There were some very good insights into what’s going to happen in the next hundred days and Senator Daschle was unequivocal when he said the administration would probably be coming up with a framework for reform and set up a board in the lines of Fed reserve to oversee it. Governor Bush was all for free enterprise as long as it is government funded and left to the “care” of the private sector to run and manage the show.
The themes for this year were very clear:
- Reduce cost of Health care
- Reduce administrative costs
- Shift the focus to improve the member’s health and work out a plan to fix the system – a clear hint on wellness based vs illness based approach
- Strong focus on EMR and RHR across the entire HC value chain
- Interoperability and collaboration across all stakeholders
- “Meaningful use and common good” (this was kind of a last minute theme that many speakers injected into the meeting after their most recent Washington visits)
I will expand on them in my future blogs. Yours truly got to shake hands with Tom Daschle and got a signed copy of his book. By far he was the most impressive speaker in the conference – a true strategic thinker and consensus driven, he was undoubtedly the best choice for the Secretary of Health. I was also impressed with Dr Charles Kennedy from Wellpoint with strategic thinking and rapid dissection of the strategic element into realistic action plans!
Right now, I am low on battery and there is no charging port in sight. The airport has an amazingly fast free wi fi and excellent Mexican food with fresh salsa bars! Adios! Viva San Diego (MHRIP!)
