Trip Report – Four Weeks, Four Conferences

I have just returned from a whirlwind of travel, attending four conferences in four weeks, all related to the fields of telemedicine and medical imaging. I am sharing some brief observations.

NAOHP – National Association of Occupational Health Providers – Nashville Tennessee

Occupational health is a field of health care made up of multiple disciplines dedicated to the well-being and safety of employees in the workplace. It has a strong focus on injury prevention and employee education. Occupational health services include employee wellness, pre-placement testing, ergonomics, occupational therapy, occupational medicine, and more. Ryan Associates hosts a professional conference for Occupational Health providers.

I attended representing Teleradiology Specialists. Of significant interest to attendees was the ability to provide B-Reads. The B-reading is a special reading of a standard chest x-ray film performed by a physician certified by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The reading looks for changes on the chest x-ray that may indicate exposure and disease caused by agents such as asbestos or silica.

There are a limited number (< 200) of B-readers nationwide and the four employed by Teleradiology Specialists promise to deliver their results within 24 hours at very reasonable prices.

PATH – Partnership for Artificial Intelligence and Automation in Healthcare – Washington, D.C.

https://pathhealth.com

First conference for this new organization created by Jonathan Linkous the founding CEO of the American Telemedicine Association and Mary Ann Liebert, founder, president, and CEO of Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. is one of the world’s best known and most respected publishers of scientific and medical books, journals, and digital information in fields such as telemedicine, health transformation, big data, and CRISPR.

If you are looking for the Next Big Thing in telemedicine and medical imaging, this is it. Artificial intelligence is the rage and hot topic of many conferences right now (even bigger than Block Chain) and the organizers assembled an all-star group of speakers to help the audience understand the nuances of machine learning, deep learning and how this might all work in conjunction with robotics and medical imaging. Dr. Eliot Siegel, Professor and Vice Chair at the University of Maryland School of Medicine is worth the price of admission at any conference where he is on the agenda.

SPS – Telemedicine & Telehealth Service Provider Summit – Glendale, AZ.
https://ttspsworld.com

Organized by the Arizona Telemedicine Program, SPS is a national conference focusing on linking telemedicine and telehealth service provider companies with hospitals, healthcare systems, clinics and others who need their services. SPS is about bringing better healthcare to patients, communities, and populations; improving outcomes; and reducing costs. It is about helping hospitals and healthcare systems to thrive through partnerships with telemedicine providers.

One unique feature of this conference was “lighting rounds” with all the (40?) conference vendors which were two-minute interviews form the trade show floor broadcast into to conference auditorium where the (400?) conference attendees could hear the vendor pitches between scheduled speakers and could decide which vendors they wanted to visit during the breaks. The interviews were conducted by Dale C. Alverson, MD, FATA, FAAP Medical Director, Center for Telehealth, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center and Elizabeth A. Krupinski, Professor and Vice Chair of Research Department of Radiology and Imaging Services, Emory University School of Medicine.

UCA – Urgent Care Association – Houston, TX

https://www.ucaoa.org

UCA is the largest, most notable trade and professional association in urgent care with more than 3,300-member centers representing urgent care clinical and business professionals from the United States and abroad. This was the last fall conference as the organization is switching to a once-a-year event starting in April of 2019.

Attending with Teleradiology Specialists, it is always a pleasure to meet with so many customers at the meeting. While there is always an opportunity to hear what we can do better, generally speaking all clients continued to be thrilled with the support and service they are receiving.

Always on the lookout for new opportunities, it was exciting to hear about companies making great strides in concussion management, rule-based scheduling, and once again, artificial intelligence for radiology interpretations (chest x-rays). Please contact me directly for additional information on any of these.

Next up, RSNA – Radiological Society of North America, the largest medical trade show in the U.S.

http://www.rsna.org/

For additional information on any of the above, contact Howard Reis at hreis@healthepractices.com