Education
2nd Annual Medical Management Conference
“Forum on Health Literacy and Racial Disparities”
Thursday, October 23, 2008 --- CT Convention Center, Hartford --- 5-9 pm
Making a Difference in Our Delivery of Health Care
Physicians from across Connecticut are urged to attend this important conference this fall. Learn more about the impact that poor health literacy and racial and ethnic disparities in health care have on patients, treating physicians and other care providers. The Forum will highlight the importance of assuring quality care for people with limited health literacy.
The Greater Hartford Coalition for Quality Healthcare, Inc. (GHC), in collaboration with Aetna, is presenting a medical management conference for physicians, insurers, employers, consumers and regulators.
The GHC includes Hartford PHO, Saint Francis PHO, The Hospital of Central Connecticut at New Britain General and Bradley Memorial Hospital, and Qualidigm, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Connecticut.
According to the Census Bureau, 12.4% of the U.S. population is born in another country and 52 million people speak a language other than English at home. The 2008 Health Forum will emphasize how these factors affect the delivery of quality healthcare.
An exceptional panel of speakers has been convened for this Forum. Physicians will be able to:
- learn strategies to identify and better manage patients with health literacy issues
- understand activities happening at the Federal level to eradicate gaps in health literacy and disparities in health care
- better understand physician liability in cases where health literacy or disparities in health care are an issue.
- receive tips for putting health literacy into practice.
In addition to Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez and Troyen A. Brennan, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Aetna, conference speakers include:
- Admiral Joxel Garcia, USPHS, MD, MBA, Assistant Secretary for Health US Department of Health and Human Services,
“Health Literacy at the State and Federal Level” - Ruth Parker, MD, Chair of the American Medical Association Foundation Steering Committee for the National Program on Health Literacy,
"Health Literacy: Can We Confuse Patients Less?" - Elizabeth Neuwirth, MS, JD, Murtha Cullina, LLP, Stamford, CT,
“Health Literacy Litigation” - Mache Seibel, MD, HealthRock™,
“The Use of Music to Promote Health Literacy”
CME Credit Information
“Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center is accredited by the Connecticut State Medical Society to sponsor continuing medical education for physicians. This Conference has been approved by Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center for a maximum of 2.5 hours of Category 1 Credit towards the AMA Physician’s Recognition Award™”
About our Speakers………
Admiral Joxel Garcia, USPHS, MD, MBAJoxel Garcia, MD was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 14, 2008 to be Assistant Secretary for Health (ASH), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and an Admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
As the ASH, Admiral Garcia serves as the Secretary’s primary advisor on matters involving the nation’s public health and science. He also oversees the U.S. Public Health Service and its Commissioned Corps for the Secretary. As Assistant Secretary for Health, Admiral Garcia’s responsibilities include disease prevention, health promotion, public health preparedness, women’s and minority health, the reduction of health disparities, fight against HIV/AIDS, pandemic influenza planning and vaccine preventable disease. Dr. Garcia is a seasoned public health professional with experience in health care delivery, bioterrorism preparedness, health policy and international health affairs. Prior to becoming the ASH, Dr. Garcia served as the Senior Vice President and Senior Medical Advisor for MAXIMUS Federal Services Inc. While with MAXIMUS, Dr. Garcia oversaw the work of the MAXIMUS Center for Global Health and was the principal architect of the strategic partnership plan for the Western Hemisphere.
Prior to that, Dr. Garcia was Deputy Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/Regional Office Western Hemisphere for the World Health Organization. As Deputy Director, Dr. Garcia was responsible for setting the general direction and strategy of the organization alongside the director and for providing leadership and advice on all policy decisions. He was also responsible for maintaining effective relations between the organization and the governments of the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. Dr. Garcia also led several important areas of the organization’s work including the emergency preparedness and disaster relief program.
Dr. Garcia is a native of Hatillo, Puerto Rico and a resident of Connecticut. He served as Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Public Health from 1999-2003. During that time, he improved bioterrorism preparedness, launched the national smallpox preparation and vaccination plan, and led Connecticut’s response to the anthrax attack.
He also created an urban health initiative to prevent disease, increase health literacy and improve economic conditions.
Dr. Garcia is a trained obstetrician and gynecologist who once served as the Assistant Director of Obstetrics and Gynecology at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, CT.
He completed his pre-medical studies at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), Mayaguez campus. He holds a medical degree from the Ponce School of Medicine in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Hartford. Dr. Garcia has served on numerous national boards, including the National Advisory Committee on Violence against Women, National Dialogue on Cancer, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, and as the president-elect of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
Dr. Garcia sees his role as Assistant Secretary for Health as an opportunity to enhance the Secretary's efforts to further the mission of HHS and the health of the nation by building, strengthening, and leveraging relationships across the public health community and the US Public Health Service while also improving healthcare for all Americans.
Ruth Parker, MD
Ruth Parker, MD, attended Davidson College and received her medical training at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She completed her residency and chief residency at the Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York, and her fellowship as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds Board Certification in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics.
Dr. Parker is currently Professor of Medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine. She is also Associate Director of the Faculty Development program there and holds a secondary appointment at the Emory University School of Public Health in the Division of Epidemiology. She also has an appointment in the Emory College, and for the last several years has taught in the summer abroad Italian Studies program, where she teaches a course on medicine and compassion.
Dr. Parker’s primary research interests and activities have been in the area of medical education and health services of underserved populations. She has been actively involved in residency training and faculty development. Over the last 20 years, Dr. Parker has focused extensively on healthcare issues of underserved populations, particularly health literacy. She was a principal investigator in the Robert Wood Johnson Literacy in Health Study and helped create a measurement tool to quantify patients’ ability to read and understand health information. She has authored numerous papers on health literacy, and co-edited the complete bibliography of medicine on health literacy for the National Library of Medicine. She chaired the expert panel for the Council of Scientific Affairs for the AMA that authored the frequently cited JAMA white paper on health literacy. She chaired the steering committee for the AMA Foundation’s national signature program on health literacy, the American College of Physicians Foundation Patient Literacy Advisory Board, and the ACP Foundation’s Programs Committee, and currently is chair of their Medication Labeling Project. She was a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Health Literacy, and is currently a member of the IOM Roundtable on Health Literacy. In 2001, Dr. Parker received the Silver Achievement Award for Women in Medicine from the AAMC, which honors women and men who have contributed substantially to women in academic medicine.
Elizabeth Neuwirth, M.S., J.D., Elizabeth Neuwirth, JD, provides assistance to health care clients throughout the State of Connecticut through Murtha Cullina, LLP., a law firm with offices in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Much of Ms. Neuwirth’s practice focuses on devising physician and hospital financial relationships to comply with the regulatory constraints of the Stark and Anti-Kickback statutes and the Medicare payment rules. She serves as general counsel to a New York Hospital and is familiar with the full range of day to day operational and risk issues that arise for treatment providers, including end-of-life and informed consent issues, sentinel events, rights of minors, issues of capacity, disruptive and non-compliant patients and families, medical staff issues, and hospital-managed care relationships. Prior to becoming a healthcare attorney she worked as a behavioral health clinician and wrote medical necessity criteria and policies for a behavioral managed care company. She received both her M.S. and her J.D. from Columbia University and is admitted to practice law in Connecticut and New York.
Mache Seibel, MD
Dr. Mache Seibel is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and director of the Complicated Menopause Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, MA.
Dr. Seibel performed his residency at Emory University followed by fellowships at Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He served as director of reproductive medicine and infertility at Beth Israel Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and was a member of the Harvard Medical School faculty from 1979–1997. From 1997–2001, Dr. Seibel served as clinical professor at Boston University School of Medicine. From 1998–2004, he served part-time as medical director of Inverness Medical Innovations. He has written or edited ten scholarly books related to medical and healthcare topics and authored or co-authored more than 200 scientific articles. From 2002–2006, Dr. Seibel was editor-in-chief of Sexuality, Reproduction and Menopause—a journal of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
Dr. Seibel is the recipient of the American Society of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynecology Research Award for work on sexual function following gynecologic oncology treatment; Searle Donald F. Richardson Award from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology for his medical research; the Meade-Johnson Focus on Patient Education Award from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology for his work in developing an interactive computer patient education concept; the Contemporary Ob/Gyn Award for the best article in gynecology; the Consumer Education Award from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine; and an Ashbel Smith distinguished alumnus award from the University of Texas Medical Branch. He is repeatedly voted by his peers into Woodward and White’s Best Doctors in America.
In 2003, Dr. Seibel founded HealthRock® (www.healthrock.com), a health and education company that teaches health literacy through music and entertainment and makes learning about health both fun and memorable. He performs nationally as DocRock™. In 2007, the HealthRock® website receive an eHealthcare Leadership Award and, in 2008, the website and Lullabies for Kids of All Ages CD both received iParenting Media Awards, and the Lullabies for Kids of All Ages CD also won a Parents’ Choice Approved Award. Seibel has also written the music and lyrics for three musical comedies and published nines music albums.
Troyen A. Brennan, MD
Dr. Brennan will report to Aetna President Ronald A. Williams, who will be Chief Executive Officer at that time. "Dr. Brennan joins Aetna as a nationally respected expert in quality of care with specific expertise in the health insurance industry, and as a practicing internist," said Williams. "Beyond impeccable credentials, he has displayed a passion and talent for creating a partnership between the insurance industry and the medical community. I am extremely pleased that Dr. Brennan has chosen to continue his career at Aetna, where he can put his experience and thought leadership to work for our nearly 15 million members nationwide."
"Our relationships with physicians have improved significantly, and we are confident that this will continue,” said Aetna Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John W. Rowe, MD “I am thrilled that Dr. Brennan has agreed to join Aetna, and know that he will be a phenomenal addition to our team. He is widely regarded as an expert in clinical quality, and has focused on opportunities to reduce medical errors. Through his work as leader of the Brigham and Women’s Physicians Organization and as past chairman of the board of the American Board of Internal Medicine, he has a deep knowledge of issues facing physicians, as well as how health plans can best interface with the clinical community."
Dr. Brennan takes over from Dr. Charles Cutler, who has been serving as interim chief medical officer. "I want to thank Dr. Cutler for an excellent job over the past few months," said Williams. "He will continue as Aetna’s national medical director for quality management."
Dr. Brennan’s career with Brigham and Women’s Hospital, located in Boston, Mass., began in 1987. In 1992, he became director of quality measurement and improvement. In 1997, he became president and CEO of Brigham and Women’s Physician Hospital Organization, a position he held through 2005, and also assumed the additional responsibility of president and CEO of Brigham and Women’s Physicians Organization. In his various roles at Brigham and Women’s, he was responsible for managed care contract negotiations, designing both primary care and specialty medical management and incentive programs, and overseeing the merger of seven specialty physician foundations and eight hospital departments into a single physician organization. Dr. Brennan also served as a practicing internist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In his academic work, he has served as professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School since 1995, and professor of law and public health at Harvard School of Public Health since 1992. Since 1987, he has published 230 peer-reviewed papers and four books. He is also a frequent presenter on health care policy, ethics and law. Dr. Brennan received his MD and M.P.H. degrees from Yale Medical School, his J.D. degree from Yale Law School, and his M.A. degree from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. As one of the nation’s leading providers of health care, dental, pharmacy, group life, behavioral health, disability and long-term care benefits, Aetna puts information and helpful resources to work for its approximately 14.65 million medical members, 13.03 million dental members, 9.34 million pharmacy members and 13.68 million group insurance members to help them make better informed decisions about their health care and protect their finances against health-related risks. Aetna provides easy access to cost-effective health care through a nationwide network of more than 700,000 health care professionals, including over 418,000 primary care and specialist doctors and 4,231 hospitals. For more information, please visit http://www.aetna.com/ (Figures as of September 30, 2005)
† Opinions expressed by presenters are not necessarily endorsed by the GHC
The conference was supported by the following generous support:
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