Improving Healthcare in Rural Northern California Goal of One-Day Conference of National and State Healthca...( UKIAH Calif. July 3 /- National a...),Health

UKIAH, Calif., July 3 /PRNewswire/ -- National and regional healthcare leaders will convene in Mendocino County July 18 for a one-day conference, "Connecting California to Improve Patient Care in 2008."

"Ultimately we want to improve rural healthcare by increasing the local adoption of electronic medical record software and by enabling the exchange of clinical data between health care providers," explained Carl Henning, MD, president of Redwood MedNet, the conference host.

The conference will be held at the Ukiah Valley Conference Center, 200 S. School St., Ukiah, from 9:00 AM to 4:15 PM. The cost to attend the conference, which includes lunch, is $35. Registration is available online at http://minformatics.com/rmn/confsign.php.

Conference goals include:

-- Recognize the benefits of incrementally improving health information systems.

-- Learn how exchanging health information electronically can improve patient care.

-- Hear about early trials with health care quality reimbursement incentives.

-- Understand the criticality of common standards for health information exchange.

Conference Schedule

9:00-9:15 - Welcome: Carl Henning, MD, Redwood MedNet

9:15-10:15 - Privacy & Health Policy in the EHR Era

-- Lori Hack, MBA, Object Health, LLC

-- Allen Briskin, JD, Davis Dwight Tremaine, LLP

10:15-10:30 - break

10:30-noon - Concurrent Sessions

Concurrent Session A - Electronic Solutions for Clinical Practices

-- Michael Hogarth, MD, UC Davis

-- Brian Herrick, MD, UCSF

-- Andy Coren, MD, Andy Coren Family Practice, Ukiah

Concurrent Session B - Electronic Health Data Interoperability:

-- Jamie Ferguson, Kaiser Permanente

-- Charles Parisot, GE Healthcare

-- Shaun Grannis, MD, MSc, Regenstrief Institute

12:15-1:15 - Lunch

1:15-2:35 - Region
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