Healthcare Trends and Forecasts in 2008, an October 10, 2007 webinar on CD-ROM, examines the trends that will impact the healthcare industry in 2008.

Listen to pre-conference comments from one of our presenters.

During this 90-minute webinar on CD-ROM, experts from key areas of healthcare examined the trends that are shaping today's healthcare industry. You'll hear from Dr. Peter Kongstvedt, a partner in the health and managed care consulting services division of Accenture, on health plan trends, Nathan Kaufman, managing director for Kaufman Strategic Advisors, on hospital trends, Dr. Joel Diamond, partner, with Diamond, Fera & Associates and chief medical officer at dbMotion Inc., on trends impacting physician groups and Elizabeth Opland, director of product development and deployment at Gordian Health Solutions, on trends impacting the wellness and health promotion sector.

You will get details on:

• What's driving changes in the healthcare industry;
• What new trends will emerge in 2008;
• How healthcare organizations can best position for 2008;
• Performance expectations for the healthcare industry in 2008;
• Problems affecting the healthcare business climate; and
• How 2008 will compare to 2007.

This fourth annual conference provides healthcare executives with a look ahead to the new year to help shape strategic plans.

Here's what participants said about last year's program:

"This conference was very useful from a trends perspective," according to a product marketing manager at Siemens.

"The conference had excellent handouts and was useful as background knowledge about the state of the healthcare industry and to grasp current and future trouble spots," according to a senior research analyst with an information solutions company.

"Good overview of industry dynamics," said Robert Mars with Siemens.

"Provided a broad overview of directions that IT and HCPs are taking," said Pamela Garbarino with Columbia Mutliservice Market Management Office.

"Good concise overview of challenges, issues, and trends," said one participant.

WHO WILL BENEFIT FROM THIS WEBINAR?

Presidents/CEOs, CFOs, chief operating officers, vice presidents, medical directors, analysts, business development executives, consultants, directors, executive directors, financial/business managers, marketing executives, principals and strategic planning executives.

Available in three formats

• CD-ROM for computer play
• CD-ROM for stereo play
• On Demand version accessible online

Please note the stereo version ships as two CD-ROMs, whereas the .mp3 version ships as one CD-ROM.

ABOUT OUR PANELISTS:

Dr. Peter Kongstvedt

Coping with provider disbelief is a huge challenge for health plans and hospitals alike, but Dr. Peter Kongstvedt, a partner in the health and managed care consulting services division of Accenture, says including the provider in the process is most important.

Dr. Peter Kongstvedt is a senior executive at Accenture in the Reston, V.A., office. He has 12 years consulting experience and almost 20 years of experience at the senior-most levels of health plans, including managed care, health insurance and Blue Cross Blue Shield plans.

In addition to his industry experience, Dr. Kongstvedt is the primary author and editor of three books currently in print: The Managed Health Care Handbook, Fourth Edition; The Essentials of Managed Health Care, Fourth Edition; and Managed Care: What it Is and How it Works, Second Edition. New editions of these books are currently in progress. Dr. Kongstvedt has also led industry benchmarking studies and worked in medical management. His primary focus is in strategic planning. Lastly, Dr. Kongstvedt serves as Accenture’s primary thought leader in this industry sector.

Examples of Dr. Kongstvedt’s relevant experiences include:

• Creating and leading three ground-breaking health plan benchmarking studies, with over 850 discrete performance measures, controlling for process differences between health plans. This rich database has allowed for the quantification of performance improvement opportunities, the creation of senior executive dashboards, and focused improvements in administrative cost and quality.
• Leading numerous strategic planning efforts.
• Conducting numerous board presentations and retreats for clients in both the for-profit and non-investor-owned communities.

Creating thought leadership white papers, monographs and presentations on a wide variety of subjects, including The Top Issues Facing the Health Insurance Industry, Challenges in Growth, Metrics-based Performance Measurement, The Application of Complexly Adapting Systems Theory (Chaos Theory) to the Healthcare Market, and Attributes of High Performing Health Plans.

Dr. Joel Diamond

Dr. Joel Diamond is the chief medical officer, North America for dbMotion, Inc., an innovative provider of medical informatics. In addition to his position with dbMotion, Dr. Diamond continues to be an active partner at Diamond, Fera and Associates, a family medicine practice in Pittsburgh. He has extensive clinical and technology experience in the North American healthcare market.

Dr. Diamond is also president of Associates In Technology, a professional services firm that assists healthcare organizations including physician organizations, state medical societies and IT vendors with clinical information technology. He is a diplomat of the American Board of Family Practice and a fellow in the American Academy of Family Physicians. Dr. Diamond formerly served as chief medical informatics officer (CMIO) and chairman of the Physician Advisory Board at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, St. Margaret Memorial Hospital, where he helped achieve 100 percent adoption of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) in a community hospital. This is one of the first such successes in the United States.

Dr. Diamond graduated from medical school at the State University of New York, Health Science Center at Syracuse in 1988, and completed his residency in Family Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), St. Margaret Memorial Hospital in 1991.

Nathan Kaufman

Nathan Kaufman is managing director and founder of Kaufman Strategic Advisors, LLC, an established San Diego-based consulting company. Throughout his career, he has held executive positions in a wide range of healthcare companies, including president and chief operating officer of an imaging center company. Kaufman currently serves on various advisory and editorial boards; Executive in Residence and HIS Advisory Board at Georgia Tech Health Systems Institute.

He has over 25 years of experience and is a nationally renowned expert in the areas of peak performing hospitals and physician groups, hospital strategy, physician compensation, integrated delivery systems, managed care, joint ventures and dispute resolution and has been called upon as an expert witness in healthcare arbitration cases.

Kaufman is a noted lecturer and author on topics related to strategies achieving peak performance, managed care, hospital-physician transactions, and joint ventures. He regularly speaks on these topics and others for numerous health system organizations and healthcare associations throughout the country.

Kaufman was a lead faculty member for the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), for which he has developed the following courses: The Art and Science of Competitive Strategy; Advanced Managed Care and Integration Strategies; Restructuring Integration: Essential Strategies for the New Millennium; and Lessons Learned: Innovative Strategies for Achieving Competitive Advantage. In addition, he holds executive education retreats and presents at numerous major conferences as keynote speaker, such as The Governance Institute and the American Leadership Governance Group.

Kaufman has made significant contributions to the body of healthcare literature and is the primary author of Building Business Relationships with Physicians, which was published by the American Academy of Family Physicians; numerous articles published by Trustee Magazine; and has developed a Governance Institute white paper as a board development tool to improve effectiveness of boards of directors, titled …Because When You’re Out of Money, You’re Out of Options.

Elizabeth Opland

Elizabeth Opland is the director of product development and deployment at Gordian Health Solutions Inc., a company specializing in population health management and lifestyle coaching. Opland has over 15 years of executive and management experience in healthcare strategy/product development, evaluation/measurement, and quality/process improvement.

Prior to joining Gordian, Opland managed health and disease management and clinical quality improvement activities for an integrated health plan/delivery system in New Mexico, serving commercial, Medicaid and Medicare populations.

Opland started her career as a psychotherapist and researcher at the University of Minnesota. There she helped establish a multidisciplinary adolescent health clinic; published treatment outcomes research, and led well-received workshops/seminars on eating disorders, depression and chemical dependency.

Leaving primary clinical work, Opland gained experience conducting healthcare and human services research and program development for the government, non-profit and healthcare sectors.

As director of clinical quality improvement and research for CIGNA Behavioral Health, Opland created an operationally integrated Clinical Quality Information System (CQIS) linking patient, provider, and program data for outcomes evaluation and reporting. In 1998 CQIS was lauded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health as “the most comprehensive effort in the field” to address healthcare quality improvement and outcomes management.

Opland also served as evaluation director of the Minnesota chapter of the federal Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative -- established during the Clinton administration in response to the Columbine shootings -- to help communities design educational, mental health, and juvenile justice services for youth.

Opland is A.B.D. (all but dissertation) for her doctorate in psychology and holds a B.A. in psychology from the University of Minnesota. Opland completed a pre-doctoral traineeship in behavioral medicine and a post-doctoral fellowship in adolescent health psychology.