2024 Annual Conference

Day 1 – Monday, October 14

Golf Registration

Golf Tournament Shotgun Start

Registration & Exhibitor Setup

Evening Reception & Golf Awards

Day 2 – Tuesday, October 15 – Preliminary Agenda

Exhibitor Setup

Registration

Continental Breakfast

President’s Welcome

Thomas West, President, VA HIMSS

Opening Keynote – AI and the Future of Medicine

Dr. Jose Morey, Ad Astra Media

Artificial Intelligence applications are changing entire industries and eliminating the routine from healthcare tasks. How will artificial intelligence and robots change the face of medicine and healthcare? How will they affect patient testing, diagnosis, and doctor/patient interaction? In this lively talk, Morey discusses what you should expect from health and medicine in the age of artificial intelligence.

Break & Exhibits

Enhancing Professional Wellbeing, Quality and Safety with EHR Learning Collaboratives

Stefanie Simmons, MD, Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation

Security SIG – Maintaining Resiliency with Third-Party Service Providers

Dwayne Harms, VCU Health
Zeb Elliott, UVA Health

Lunch & Exhibits

Using Human-Centered Design to Combat Burnout In Healthcare

Dr. Craig Joseph, Nordic Global

Leveraging principles outlined in Designing for Health: The Human-Centered Approach, Dr. Joseph will explore how applying human-centered design principles can address burnout among clinicians, patients, and IT staff. By focusing on real-world challenges and collaborative problem-solving, he will demonstrate how design can create intuitive workflows, reduce frustrations, and improve overall well-being in healthcare. Practical examples and actionable steps will showcase the power of this approach in transforming healthcare environments for the better.

Data and Analytics SIG – Mastering the Culture Required for Maximum Analytics Impact

Jeff Fuller, Divurgent

Oceans of data are creating immense potential for enabling us to drive towards better health, but it also comes with tremendous risk for arbitrating the source of truth when new data are not managed and contextualized properly. Furthermore, there is a need for ensuring your investments in data and analytics are targeted at solving real strategic problems. Two barriers to untapping the full potential of your data assets are culture and misaligned strategic incentives. To fully leverage this potential, healthcare organizations must adopt a comprehensive strategy that encompasses a culture change in how to effectively use data to create solutions that transform, enhance, and integrate into the delivery of health (as opposed to incrementally adding additional steps). In this session, you will learn examples and best practices in how to position your data and analytics solutions as strategic functions that work upstream from the common problems of mistrust in data, different answers to the same questions, proliferation of dashboards without insights in how to change, and silos established through limited coordination of problem themes. 

Objectives:

• Defining the right balance and approach for the people, process, and technology in your analytics operating model in order to achieve strategic and long-term success
• Leaders in health today expect impact and results far more quickly than ever before – agility and speed are critical; learn how to achieve this with sensitivity to the culture for change management.
• Strategically deployed and professionally delivered organizational change management activities help mitigate the biggest obstacles to successful benefits realization: learn how to align leaders and users to achieve better results
• Clinical collaboration in ideation of analytics solutions is required to contextualize the problem in the solution design and to prioritize the impact of potential solutions in the queue. Learn how to deploy scaled portfolio management techniques to rationalize your portfolio.
• Learn best practices in data and AI governance to enable single sources of truth and minimize ethical or unintended bias in AI and ML solutions.

CNIO/CMIO Panel

Moderator: Mike Canfield, Augusta Health
Dr. Steve Morgan, Carilion Clinic
Dr. Jeff Kim, VCU Health
Michelle Lardner, DNP, RN, UVA Health

Break & Exhibits

Emerging Leader Panel

Moderator: Laishy Williams-Carlson, Nordic Global
Tyler Okoren, Sentara
Dwayne Harms, VCU Health
Carole Poff, Carilion Clinic
Trip Humphrey, Carilion Clinic

Daily Wrap Up

Attendee Reception

Join us for an evening of good food, drinks, and entertainment by Charles Owens!

Day 3 – Wednesday, October 16 – Preliminary Agenda

Registration

Continental Breakfast

Keynote – Five Regrets to Avoid in Life and Business

Doug Holladay, PathNorth Inc.

Break & Exhibits

The Impact of Evidence-Based Care Plans on Cost and Utilization

Dr. Monica Schmidt, MPH, Cone Health

There is a plethora of evidence that supports nurse care management to delay the progression of chronic diseases and reduce the cost of care. In fact, value-based care is anchored in the ability to keep a population healthy longer while reducing acute unplanned hospitalizations. It is unclear if guidance from evidence-based nurse care plans impact clinical and financial outcomes.

Our study aimed to evaluate the impact of using Elsevier evidence-based care plans by nurse care managers to reduce emergency room visits for ambulatory sensitive conditions and overall annual paid claims amount for members in value-based care contracts at Cone Health (Triad Healthcare Network). Our hypothesis is that if care managers utilized evidence-based care plans, the members would have fewer ED visits and lower annual spend compared to similar members not undergoing active care management.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the importance of using evidence-based care management strategies to reduce acute utilization and cost of care in a value-based care payment model.
• Compare methods for finding a comparable population to use as controls when analyzing complex population health data.
• Report on the new AHRQ ambulatory sensitive condition definitions and how they can be used in population health analytics to tease out preventable visits to emergency departments.
• Report on the impact of using evidence-based care plans to guide nurses in their care of large, diverse populations. Demonstrate the value of the care plan used on ED visits and average per member per month spend.
• Describe how evidence-based guidelines reduce care variation and keep staff on track to manage large populations of individuals successfully.

Human-Centered AI: Building Trust in the Future of Healthcare

Ankit Mathur, United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS)
Trip Humphrey, Carilion Clinic

This discussion focuses on how AI can support, not supplant, the human touch in healthcare. As AI advances at breakneck speed, we’ll explore strategies for balancing rapid innovation with the need for patient-centered care, ensuring AI enhances, rather than disrupts, the clinician-patient relationship.

CIO Panel

Moderator: Laishy Williams-Carlson, Nordic Global
Leigh Williams, Augusta Health
Ellen Wiegand, VCU Health
Geoff Lawson, Mary Washington
Mike Hibbard, Bon Secours Mercy Health

Closing Awards and Conference Wrap-Up