Date(s):  June thru September, 2009
Time:  10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. CENTRAL TIME

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Session 1 - Gaining a Competitive Advantage in Tough Economic Times: Engaging Physicians to Achieve Top Cardiac Care
June 18, 2009
10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Central
Faculty: Marigene “Mimi" Hartker, MD, MBA, Senior Physician Consultant, HealthGrades

Tough economic times mean tough choices for hospital leadership. While some hospitals may be scaling back quality improvement programs, the best hospitals know that now is the time to invest to achieve world-class care and put the competition far behind them. Learn how executive teams can make the first and most powerful step towards building an award-winning cardiac care program. Examine specific strategies that your hospital can implement now to ensure physician leaders fully support and work towards your vision for becoming the best of the best.

Objectives:
1. Examine common barriers to physician alignment in cardiac programs.
2. Learn about quality and process improvements that influence physician behavior.
3. Identify effective leadership strategies used to engage physicians and drive results.

Session 2 - The Quality Metrics that Matter: Collect Less. Impact More.
July 15, 2009
10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. (Central)
Faculty: Rick May, MD, Senior Physician Consultant, HealthGrades

With mounting external pressures to measure performance, hospitals often find themselves caught up in an endless cycle of abstracting, scrubbing and analyzing everything. This takes hospitals time, money and resources, so how can you make your metrics useful? Find out how to move beyond simply collecting data to identifying the metrics that matter. Learn how continuous measurement can drive a lack of focus and understand the steps you can take towards aligning metrics with the organization’s core strategies.

Hospital leaders agree they are spending too much time tracking and not enough time improving. Understand why measurement does not equal improvement. Examine how making data actionable, and holding physicians accountable for what they do, drives clinical improvement. Performance feedback can be a powerful tool if you’re giving caregivers the metrics they need to change. Being selective with what to measure will save your hospital time, money and lives.

Objectives:
1. Gain insight on what data is meaningful and how to identify what metrics your hospital should be tracking.
2. Learn why measurement does not equal improvement and why overestimating the importance of data collection and analysis can become a roadblock to clinical excellence.
3. Examine how making data actionable, and holding physicians accountable for what they do, drives clinical improvement initiatives.
4. Find out why performance feedback can be a very powerful tool if you’re giving caregivers the metrics they need to change.

Session 3 - The Journey to Clinical Excellence: Five Essential Strategies
August 12, 2009
10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Central
Faculty: Samantha Collier, MD, MBA, Chief Medical Officer, HealthGrades

What does it take to be a top-quality hospital? This webinar will identify how hospital and physician leaders can effectively make quality a priority within their organization. Find out what an unconditional commitment to quality means, and discuss why this is crucial and often intimidating, yet achievable. Learn about five essential strategies required for measureable and sustainable quality success, such as creating an accountable culture and identifying the root causes of unengaged physicians. Understand why each strategy is vital, and the steps you can take now to put your organization on the right track.

Find out what some of the nation’s highest-performing medical centers have done to become leading quality providers. Review incentives for quality change within their organizations and the results and lessons learned from their journey to clinical excellence.

Objectives:
1. Learn what an unconditional commitment to quality means.
2. Identify the five strategies required for quality success.
3. Review several incentives for quality change within some of the nation's highest-performing medical centers and the results from their journey to clinical excellence.

Session 4 - Health Care Transparency and Consumerism: Where the Rubber Meets the Road
September 22, 2009
10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Central
Faculty: Scott Shapiro, Senior Vice President, HealthGrades

The online health-seeking population is growing dramatically. A recent study illustrates that the Internet is the most preferred source for health information and there are approximately 116 million consumers using the Internet to get health care information and to find a provider. When dealing with health issues, individuals turn to the Web before their doctor, hospital, or any other provider.

Gain valuable insight on the current and future drivers of transparency and consumerism in health care. Learn about the significant trends in consumer online search behavior and understand how they provide strategic business opportunities and risks for hospital organizations. Examine how the “rubber meets the road” when real patients use online health care information to make decisions.

Objectives:
1. Gain valuable insight on the current and future drivers of transparency and consumerism in health care.
2. Learn about the significant impact of search, transparency and consumerism on patients and providers and find out what progressive hospitals are doing.
3. Examine how the “rubber meets the road” when real patients use online health care information to make decisions.

Target Audience: Middle and senior hospital leadership; business development and marketing vice presidents, chief medical officers, nursing leaders, quality improvement teams, and service line directors

Faculty: HealthGrades

Scott Shapiro, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications and Marketing
Scott Shapiro directs the communications, marketing and branding efforts for HealthGrades, the leading independent health care ratings organization. Mr. Shapiro has honed the public positioning of the company and communicated the value of HealthGrades’ health care quality information to employers, health plans, hospitals, physicians and millions of consumers through the news media and other venues. As engaging presenter, he speaks nationally at industry conferences including Health 2.0, Partners HealthCare Connected Health Symposium, World Congress, Health Care Association of New York, Young Presidents Organization Healthcare Industry Forum and the Consumer Driven Healthcare Summit.

Rick May, MD, Senior Physician Consultant
Dr. Rick May is an orthopedic surgeon and physician consultant. He works with hospital and physician leaders throughout the nation to improve clinical outcomes, drive processes of care, and has special interests in the areas of patient safety and quality reporting for physicians. An engaging speaker, Dr. May presents nationally at industry conferences including the Cleveland Clinic’s Orthopedic Care Quality Summit and the American Association of Orthopedic Executives. Dr. May spent 15 years as a private practice orthopedic surgeon. He has also served as Director of Orthopedic Trauma for two Denver-area hospitals. Dr. May recently served as President of the Colorado Medical Society. His responsibilities included strategic planning, primary spokesperson with the Colorado Legislature and press, and Chair of the CMS Board of Directors.

Samatha Collier, MD, MBA, Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Collier is a board certified internist, former Assistant Professor of Medicine at OUHSC-Tulsa, and currently Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs/Chief Medical Officer. An engaging presenter, Dr. Collier discusses the importance of health care ratings, public profiling and patient safety to multitudes of national conferences, including the Harvard Quality Colloquium, CMS National Customer Service conference, the American College of Healthcare Executives and the National Association for Healthcare Quality. She has assisted more than 100 hospital organizations throughout the country with the development of quality improvement initiatives that have improved their public profiling positions, competitive positioning and quality of care. Dr. Collier has also developed several new outcomes measurements used by payors, business groups, insurers and consumers that provide more useful information to make informed choices about where to seek health care.

Dr. Collier has co-authored several studies including First Time Preplanned and “Patient Choice” Cesarean Section Rates in the United States, the organization’s Annual Hospital Quality in America Study, and the Annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study, which have received significant public attention in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, and on CNN, the Today Show and hundreds of other news outlets.

Marigene “Mimi” Hartker, MD, MBA, Senior Physician Consultant
Dr. Hartker specializes in internal medicine and pediatrics with a background in conflict management and dispute resolution, which makes her a powerful ally for hospitals looking to build strong, sustainable physician relationships – the foundation for a culture of clinical excellence. Dr. Hartker leads clinical excellence teams in a variety of areas, and specializes in cardiac service line process improvement, conflict within the health care environment, and hospital medicine. Dr. Hartker presents on physician engagement strategies, clinical outcomes, and the impact of consumerism, transparency and public profiling to national conferences including the Healthcare Association of New York State and the Alliance of Cardiovascular Professionals.

Registration: Educate Your Entire Staff Quickly and Economically!
Register for this program to educate your entire staff in a short period of time without incurring multiple registration fees or travel expenses. The registration is $195 and includes one toll-free telephone connection and one free internet connection to the presentation. You can gather numerous staff members in one room to “attend” for one economical price. Prior to the program, you will receive a detailed slide presentation and handout materials which you can distribute to all participants, along with the log-in information.

Click here to register

For More Information:
Jon Borton
Phone: (402) 742-8147
E-mail: jborton@nhanet.org