Association News and Updates Archives
NHIA Hosts Successful 16th Annual Conference
(March 16, 2007)
Alexandria, VA—Savannah, Georgia was the epicenter of the home infusion therapy provider community during the National Home Infusion Association’s 16th Annual Conference & Exposition, held there February 26-March 1.
More than 1,400 pharmacists, nurses, reimbursement professionals, and managers from throughout the nation attended this year’s conference, making it a memorable event. More than 450 representatives from the top 100 manufacturing, distribution, and service companies serving the home infusion market also exhibited in the NHIA trade show and exhibitor theatres.
Two pre-conference programs, five industry-sponsored breakfast symposia, nearly 40 general education programs, and two stand-up comedians in full clean room garb made the 16th Annual Conference a smashing success.
As part of the event, NHIA’s national advocacy initiatives were explained and further developed. To support the association’s efforts, NHIA members contributed more than $16,000 in contributions to the NHIA Legislative Defense Fund, which helped the association secure an additional $10,000 matching grant from Innovatix, LLC.
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General Session – Crafting Your Uniqueness
In today’s complex health care world, home infusion providers find themselves pulled in many different directions. It’s essential for organizations to take the time to refocus, asserted Opening Session keynote speaker Stephen Tweed, CSP. Tweed, author of Strategic Focus: A Gameplan for Developing Competitive Advantage, presented a model for strategic refocusing designed to guide entrepreneurs in assessing the current reality and plan for the future.
“Our picture of the future is not as crisp as the present,” he explained. “So we want to learn how to look at trends and forces to anticipate what could occur and prepare to deal with change.” Your desired future rests on a foundation of competitive advantage," continued Tweed, who is recognized nationally as an expert on strategy and leadership development for business and health care organizations.
Tweed went on to describe seven ways that a provider organization can differentiate itself from its competitors: product differentiation, service differentiation, narrow market focus, relationships, exceptional customer service, common values, and low price. “You can’t do all of these,” he explained. “But which combination of the seven works for you? The magic is in the mix and in the execution.”
Educational Programming
“Educational programming remains the central draw for the Annual Conference, and this year’s Education Committee took the programming to a new level this year,” observed NHIA President Chris Maksym, Pharm.D., from the University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers Home Care division.
Hot topics, industry and market trends, clinical advances, and a special focus on sales and marketing were addressed over four days in sessions designed for one of four tracks: clinical, management, reimbursement, and sales and marketing. More than 50 hours of nursing and pharmacy continuing education were available.
New for the 16th Annual Conference was a fourth track of programming that focused exclusively on sales and marketing for home infusion service providers. Nine sessions addressed issues specific to sales and marketing executives, including strategic planning, organizing a home infusion sales team, effective compensation plans for sales representatives, preventing common sales mishaps, and market considerations regarding the growing care model called the Ambulatory Infusion Suite (AIS).
The perennial pre-conference favorites were well attended again this year. Despite weather-related travel disruptions, the NHIA Executive Conference was sold out with more than 300 attendees. This full-day of executive-level programming took a focused look at the scope and dynamics of the specialty pharmacy marketplace. In today’s rapidly evolving biotech drug market, many home infusion providers are looking to define their scope of business, broaden their perspectives, and facilitate strategic decisions related to providing specialty infusion pharmaceutical products and services.
Sponsored by Managed Healthcare Associates, “Specialty Pharmacy: Overview of Market Dynamics and Key Trends” featured experts from a variety of health care perspectives, including Raulo Frear, Pharm.D., President of RX Inquiry, LLC; Debra Stern, R.Ph., Vice President of Rxperts Managed Care Consulting; Terry Killilea, Pharm.D., Vice President of Pharmacy for Regence Blue Shield of Idaho; and a panel of home infusion providers who had successfully managed specialty pharmaceutical programs to address key disease states.
Running concurrent to the Executive Conference was “The Fundamentals of Infusion Reimbursement” led by industry guru David Franklin, M.S.A., President of Advanced Care Consulting Service and Operations for Advanced Care, in Shelby Township, Michigan. Nearly 150 reimbursement specialists—a rapidly growing segment of NHIA Annual Conference attendees—gathered for an in-depth look at advanced management challenges.
Change of Leadership
The 16th Annual Conference also marked a new era of NHIA leadership as Lorrie Kline Kaplan stepped down as the association’s long-time Executive Director and Russell Bodoff assumed the position.
Bodoff has nearly 25 years of experience in all aspects of association management, business development, and advocacy—and a long track record of success and achievement in areas that will be tremendous assets in continuing to advance the interests of the NHIA community.
He joins NHIA from the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA), where he served since 2002 as Vice President of Technology & Business Development. In 2003, he helped launch AAHSA’s Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST). Read more.
“I’ve never seen an association’s membership so close and full of energy—that energizes me as well,” said Bodoff in his first address to NHIA members at the Annual Conference General Session.
Bodoff said there were three compelling reasons why he brings personal passion to supporting NHIA’s mission. “First, I personally know through family medical challenges the value of receiving infusion care outside the hospital setting.”
“Second, I led a technology initiative that was dedicated to moving more care from the institutional setting into the home. And, finally, I have a fear for our country and where we are with our health care system. We are facing some real challenges, and home-based care fits into the mission of delivering high-quality, cost-effective care.”
Dates to Remember
Next year NHIA will hold its 17th Annual Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. We invite you to join us for what will surely be an even bigger and better week of networking, educational opportunities, and fun in America’s Southwest. NHIA’s 17th Annual Conference & Exposition will be held March 16-19, 2008; for more information, please visit us on the web at www.nhia.org.
Plans are also underway for the association’s 3rd Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C., June 19-20. This increasingly popular and critical grassroots effort will focus on connecting NHIA members with their representatives on Capitol Hill. Visit www.nhia.org for more information.