An industry united

The 2013 ASHRM annual conference was a roaring success, with some delegates describing it as the best event in decades. HRMR gives an overview of the highlights, from educational sessions to awards.

ASHRM’s annual conference has long been established as the optimal learning, networking and career-building experience for risk managers—and this year’s event, held in Austin, Texas, from October 27 to 30, was no exception.

Highlights included keynote speaker Ian Morrison, who presented ‘The future of the healthcare marketplace: playing the new game’ on day one, and ‘Endeavour to succeed’ presented by closing keynote Captain Mark Kelley.

The conference included more than 70 educational sessions, in addition to ASHRM’s bite-size learning sessions and ASHRM’s new research meetings.

The educational sessions were designed so that attendees could customize their experience by selecting sessions from a single domain of practice or opt to diversify their experience by selecting sessions in all of the different conference tracks. Educational tracks included claims and litigation, enterprise risk management, leadership development, legal and regulatory, patient safety and risk financing.

This year’s overarching theme was ‘Everyone is a Risk Manager’. It emphasized the role that all healthcare workers hold as guardians of patient safety, and the important role risk managers hold as thought leaders and change agents in the industry.

ASHRM’s message that Everyone is a Risk Manager is directly tied to the society’s move to enterprise risk management (ERM), which ASHRM defines as “a comprehensive framework for making risk management decisions that maximize value protection and creation, by managing risk and uncertainty and their connections to total value”.

The benefits an ERM approach offers are numerous, with the end result being enhanced patient safety—the ultimate goal of every healthcare organization. The conference included an ERM track.

Attendees seemed delighted with the whole conference experience. Comments recorded on the ASHRM website include: “This year’s ASHRM 2013 was awesome”, “I wanted to thank you and the ASHRM staff for another great conference. I enjoyed the sessions and got a lot out of them”, and, “It was the best conference I’ve attended in the 35 years I’ve been in nursing. My hospital had a freeze on educational support so I spent approximately $4,700 of my own money to attend. It was worth every penny!”

2013 ASHRM awards

During ASHRM 2013’s annual business meeting the society recognized individuals who received the FASHRM and DFASHRM designation and ASHRM Research Grant winners. In addition, the winners of ASHRM’s Journal of Healthcare Risk Management Author Excellence Award, Distinguished Service Award (DSA) and Presidential Citation were announced.

The Author Excellence Award is granted for an article that is well written, supportive of research in risk management and patient safety, supports ASHRM’s vision and mission, and creates new knowledge that advances the risk management and patient safety discipline.

The award is selected by the Journal of Healthcare Risk Management’s editorial review board. This year’s award was won by Beth Lown and her co-authors Karen Gareis, William Kormos, Gila Kriegel, Daniel Leffler, Jim Richter, Amy Ship, and Eric Weil for ‘Communicate, don’t litigate: The Schwartz Center Connections Program’.

Michelle Hoppes won the DSA, the highest honor bestowed on an individual by ASHRM in recognition of a single achievement or lifetime contribution. To be eligible for consideration, nominees must be nominated by their peers and their contributions validated by an evaluation of their participation in ASHRM.

Hoppes is a nationally recognized expert and frequent speaker in risk management, patient safety and loss control. She has performed many functions throughout her 30-year healthcare career in the fields of nursing, risk financing, claims management, performance improvement and consulting. Hoppes has had numerous risk management articles published, as well as book chapters. She has completed the AHA/ASHRM/NPSF leadership program as a patient safety fellow.

Hoppes obtained a Master’s degree in healthcare management with an emphasis in risk management from the Finch University of Health Sciences/The Chicago Medical School. She is certified in risk management and quality review.

The Presidential Citation, launched in 2011, is presented on a highly selective basis to individuals in recognition of outstanding and exceptional service to the specialty of risk management.

This year’s winner of the Presidential Citation was Mark Cohen, a recently retired risk management consultant for Sutter Health Risk Services. In this role, Cohen provided a broad range of risk management consultation services to Sutter Health’s large network of acute care hospitals, physician organizations, medical research facilities, region-wide home health, hospice and occupational health networks and long-term care centers serving more than 100 Northern California communities.

Cohen began his career in risk management in 1982 at the UCLA Medical Center and Center for the Health Sciences and was subsequently appointed its director of risk management. In 1987, he moved to Sacramento to become director of risk management for the University of California, Davis Health System. Cohen joined Sutter Health’s Office of the General Counsel as a corporate risk management consultant in 1995.

Cohen is a past president of both the Southern California Association for Healthcare Risk Management (SCAHRM) and the California Society for Healthcare Risk Management (CSHRM), and served on ASHRM’s board of directors in 2002 and 2003.

He has served for many years as a member of ASHRM’s faculty for both the ASHRM’s Barton Certificate in Healthcare Risk Management program and the CPHRM Study Sessions and has served on a number of ASHRM committees. He was the first Chair of ASHRM’s Online Education Committee and authored the chapter on statutes, standards and regulations for the third, fourth, fifth and sixth editions of the Risk Management Handbook for Healthcare Organizations.