ASHRM conference promises networking and professional development

15-10-2015

The 35th annual American Society for Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM) conference, which takes place in Indianapolis from October 18 – 21, marks a major milestone for ASHRM.

Taking the theme of ‘Driving Safe and Trusted Healthcare’, it will offer attendees a chance to share ideas and enhance their own risk management practice.

ASHRM is a membership group of the American Hospital Association (AHA), with nearly 6,000 members representing risk management, patient safety, insurance, law, finance and other related professions.

Sessions at the four-day conference will include a panel discussion on the enterprise risk management approach to emergency preparedness, which will draw on panelists’ experiences of everything from Ebola to the Boston marathon bombing.

“We are going to use some of our enterprise risk management (ERM) professionals to take what our speakers say and help our members incorporate them into an ERM plan for emergency preparedness, both from the systemic perspective - where we talk about a strategic plan - as well as an operational perspective,” said ASHRM president Ellen Grady Venditti.

Other sessions will include ASHRM’s annual meeting, where the opening keynote speaker is Marianne Jennings, a professor of legal and ethical studies, who will be talking about culture and how culture can sabotage ethics and compliance – and how to prevent this from happening in your organization.

Also on offer is a session on advanced ERM, with input from the head of risk management at the Texas Roadhouse restaurant chain, who will discuss how some of their principles could be adopted in healthcare risk management.

“We also have over 70 individual breakout sessions that people can attend, which we have streamlined into the categories that match our strategic plan.  All of the tracks fall under enterprise risk management and include patient safety, leadership, healthcare operations, legal and regulatory, risk financing, claims and litigation, and quality leadership,” said Venditti.

She added that the response from healthcare risk managers has been very positive: registrations are up and the exhibition hall will have plenty to explore.

“I’m very much looking forward to it,” said Venditti. “It gives me a great opportunity to interact with our members on a level I didn’t have in the past - to see the wonderful things our members do and really appreciate them. I’ve never missed an ASHRM conference and I’ve met people there with with whom I’ve kept in touch over the years.

“My main role as president is to figure out what our members need, and to implement those things working with our great executive team, and the ASHRM conference is an important part of achieving that.”

ASHRM, Ellen Grady Venditti, US