Tuesday, January 28, 2020
The Value of Interdisciplinary Medical Summits
All progress in medicine depends on innovative thinking. But how can we harness the power of new ideas if healthcare professionals are working in silos? It’s a problem that plays out again and again across our healthcare system as teams struggle to collaborate and communicate effectively. The rigid hierarchy long embraced in medical settings can be a stubborn obstacle to meaningful change.
The high cost of a siloed approach in healthcare stretches beyond stagnation in innovation. Failure to work as a team and communicate effectively also makes patient care expensive, inefficient, and downright dangerous. Medical errors are the third-highest cause of death in the United States, with a breakdown in communication or variance in care behind most of them.
Clearly, the key to progress and improved patient care is breaking down silos within the medical community. One simple yet profound way to do this is through interdisciplinary medical summits.
Interdisciplinary conferences are not a new concept. Technology conferences have long been attended simultaneously by software engineers, hardware engineers, designers, developers, and marketing teams. It is an idea that could – and should – be transferred to medical conferences, with multiple healthcare stakeholders attending and learning together.
One benefit of teammates learning together is a reduction of friction. The take-home value of new information is exponential when learned, discussed, and implemented together, removing the need to “sell” ideas to stakeholders upon returning home. When stakeholders learn together, future decisions become easier.
An interdisciplinary conference also allows attendees to attend lectures outside of their own expertise. Stepping out of one’s professional niche can be an eye-opening experience that produces the kind of professional empathy and collaborative problem-solving that is essential in high-efficiency organizations. It is imperative that both clinical and non-clinical professionals are aligned in their goals and interdisciplinary conferences can help make this happen.
Additionally, there are novel networking opportunities available at conferences that capture a wider audience. When professionals with varied roles but shared goals have a chance to speak and share perspectives, it is easier to understand the full scope of patient care. And understanding that big picture – getting a bird’s eye view of all the opportunities and challenges – can lead to meaningful “Aha!”’ moments in organizations.
The 2020 Orthopedic Value-Based Care is a unique multidisciplinary conference held in Newport Beach, California that strives to drive meaningful change by bringing people together. In its fourth year now, the conference was built on the idea that entire teams – physicians, anesthesiologists, nurses, and administration – benefit most from learning together. With the field of value-based orthopedics quickly evolving as outpatient joint replacements, physician-owned ambulatory surgery centres, and opioid-sparing surgery become mainstream, clinical and non-clinical decision-makers are facing new challenges.
Dr. Zeev Kain, the creator of this conference, believes these challenges are best faced together: “If you break the silos, there is no question that your outcomes will be better, your patient experience will be better, and your clinical outcomes will be better.”
The purpose of the conferences is to go beyond theory and provide actionable items that can be used immediately to improve the bottom line. Its nuts-and-bolts approach answers questions such as:
- How can we reduce complications after surgery?
- How can we improve our clinical outcomes?
- How can we reduce length-of-stay after surgery?
- How can we negotiate better contracts in outpatient surgery?
- How will our patient experience improve?
Answering these questions requires an examination of the clinical, operational, and financial aspects of value-based care. Teams are encouraged to attend the conference together because value-based care can only be fully implemented with the coordination and cooperation of an entire team.
In order to provide comprehensive coverage of all areas, the Saturday and Sunday afternoon conference sessions are broken down into three interactive tracks. Attendees can choose to dive further into a financial-operational session, a clinical session, or real-world cases. Some attendees choose to step out of their usual area of expertise and join discussions they often aren’t exposed to. For example, a healthcare CEO may attend the clinical track and hear clinical lectures about hip replacements. Or a surgeon may sit in on the financial sessions to better understand how to improve the bottom line at his Ambulatory Surgery Centre. Looking at the patient journey from unexplored angles give attendees valuable fresh insights.
The ultimate dream is to see silos across the medical system dismantled in order to provide optimal patient care. In the meantime, interdisciplinary conferences can help build stronger, better teams. The 2020 Orthopedic Value-Based Care conference promises to do just that!
In its 4th year, OVBC is a multidisciplinary conference on a mission to break the silos and bring together physicians, executives, nurses, and pharma leaders to solve the most pressing problems facing orthopedic healthcare today. ***New in 2020: A one day conference on advanced value-based health in cardiology, bariatric surgery, and women’s health!** Get all the details here: https://acpm.health/ovbc2020/