Gray skies and a chilly wind blew through San Diego at the start of the annual conference of the National Business Group on Health last week. The poor weather reflected the general mood of attendees as they face the worst economy in several generations.
Never have so many people eaten so few desserts at a healthcare industry luncheon. How could they after hearing presentation after presentation on how to create a healthier—and consequently more productive and less costly—workforce in the U.S.
In case there’s any lingering doubt, let it be known that post-election agenda pushing by healthcare-policy influencers has begun in earnest. That was certainly the not-so-subliminal message received during a briefing on the cost and effectiveness of medical technology in Washington this week.
There was, of course, no heady discourse on healthcare policy in Grant Park on election night. But Obama, though he stood before a jubilant hometown crowd witnessing their nation’s first African-American president, spoke soberly about the challenges the country faces.
After some 21 months of electoral run-up, planners dared only to label Barack Obama’s mass gathering in Chicago’s Grant Park on Tuesday an “Election Night Event.”
The outcome of next week’s presidential and congressional elections may not have been the official theme of the Acute Long Term Hospital Association’s annual fall conference, but the topic was never far from discussions at the meeting of post-acute providers.
Don’t blame us, we’re just the messengers. That was the vibe given off by two executives from the Medical Group Management Association’s Washington office to several hundred conference-goers who attended the group’s Washington Update session at the conference in San Diego.
If you want to know what people really think at a healthcare business conference, find the rooms where there isn't a PowerPoint presentation projected on the wall and instead moderators are walking around handing people microphones.
