“Health care conference slated for fall”

Nashville Business Journal, by Dave Raiford, April 14, 2003

For all its size and might, the health care industry is a fractured system of competing demands and directions. That's not a recipe for cohesive action addressing the sector's diverse problems and it's become the motivation for a large annual conference to debut in Nashville in November.

The Healthcare Delivery Solutions Congress is scheduled for the Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Resort and is expected to draw health care executives by the hundred to Nashville.

The scope of the conference is meant to blend the far-flung components of the medical industry, including hospitals, outpatient surgery centers, insurance, biotechnology, technology and research.

"The whole goal is to try to bring all of the constituents together in one setting," says Mark Anderson, health care industry expert and featured speaker at the conference. "There are a lot of conferences, but no one really brings everyone together to come up with solutions for better delivery of health care."

The projected audience for the conference includes top-level health care executives, physicians, practice managers, IT executives and investors.

Last October, officials from The Emergent Group, a conference and trade show producer, contacted the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau and Nashville Health Care Council about locating an annual conference in Music City.

"We helped provide them with information about the city, airlift and hotel facilities, venues and attractions," says Paul Miller, CVB director of convention sales.

Emergent held one of its eHealthcareWorld conferences in Nashville and was pleased enough with the results that it considered the city a destination for a broader health care event, says Matt Gallivan, president of the Health Care Council.

An all-encompassing conference is a natural fit for Nashville, says Skip Brickley, founder of Emergent.

"It just made sense to be able to put on a national and international event to embrace what is going on in Nashville and having the national community come in and create a marketplace where things can happen," Brickley says.

Emergent plans to co-locate its Consumer-Directed Health Care Conference and Expo with the larger Healthcare Delivery Congress. The plan is to conduct a spring conference in Las Vegas, and a fall conference in Nashville yearly.

Emergent has committed $500,000 to the conference, but the investment is likely to climb, Brickley says. Based on the success of the consumer-directed conference last week in Las Vegas, he says the forecast for a larger event in Nashville is promising.

"I would be surprised if we don't have the same response that we've had in Las Vegas," he says. "We've had 650 people attend, 80 exhibits, and 70 world-class speakers."

Conventions and conferences are already big business in Nashville. By the CVB's count, 941 such events were held in Nashville in 2002, up three from the year prior, says Anetha Grant, bureau vice president of convention sales and marketing.

"Health care continues to be a strong piece of our market," she says. "A good example of that would be that they're reserving 300 rooms, but are expecting 1,000 attendants."

Laura Campbell, CEO of Laura Campbell & Associates and former executive director of the Health Care Council, has been working with Emergent to put together a local/national advisory board to brainstorm and suggest topic ideas.

"The advisory board will help develop the overall vision of the conference as well identify breaking health care issues that may not yet be in the public consciousness," Campbell says.

So far, the advisory board includes local heavy hitters Dr. Thomas Frist of HCA Inc., Tom Cigarran of American HealthWays Inc. and Dr. Harry Jacobson of Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Beyond the economic impact, having a large conference call Nashville home fits into the Health Care Council's mission to stage Nashville as a hub for the health care industry.

"It's been one of the long-term goals of the Health Care Council, to bring national health care programs to the city and create networking opportunities," Gallivan says. "We may do some events on the side. It's a great opportunity to get exposure for Nashville."