Yale Healthcare Conference to Explore the Patient as a Consumer

New Haven, Conn., March 26, 2008 – “Whose Healthcare is it Anyway? Understanding the Patient as a Consumer,” the fourth annual healthcare conference presented by the Yale School of Management and the health professions schools at Yale University, will be held at the Omni New Haven Hotel, 155 Temple Street, on Friday, April 11.

This year’s conference will explore the idea of the patient as the central stakeholder in healthcare, focusing on how the healthcare industry identifies and meets the needs of its consumers — patients — and how patients can voice their needs and have them met by the healthcare industry. The conference theme will frame the discussion of a variety of timely issues, including understanding patient needs, access to healthcare, access to payment, health information transparency, and the growing importance of prescription medications.

Michael C. Howe, CEO of MinuteClinic, will present the opening keynote at 9:15 a.m.; Jay Silverstein, Chief Imagineer of Revolution Health, will present the closing address at 4:15 p.m.

An executive panel will debate the merits of the patient as a consumer at 1:00 p.m. The panelists are: Dr. Robert Graham, Professor, University of Cincinnati School of Medicine; Dr. Jeffrey Kang, Chief Medical Officer, CIGNA Healthcare; Arthur Levin, Director, Center for Medical Consumers; and Lambert van der Walde, Capital Markets Advisor, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, with moderator Dr. Robert Galvin, Director of Global Healthcare, General Electric.

Throughout the day, industry practitioners will lead a series of 16 breakout sessions that will explore the needs of the patient through the lenses of empowering patients, delivering healthcare, financing healthcare, and delivering medications. These small group discussions include: Does the Doctor Still Know Best — or Even the Most?; In the Store and On the Phone: The New Frontiers of Primary Care Delivery; the Massachusetts Health Plan One Year Later: Lessons Learned from a “Pay or Play” System; But I Saw it on the Web: Ensuring Patients Get Accurate Health Information; and many others.

The full conference schedule, list of presenters, and registration is available on the conference website: http://www.yalehealthcare.com.

The conference is sponsored in part by CIGNA, Emergent Biosolutions, The Donaghue Foundation, Aetna, Boehringer Ingelheim, The Chartis Group, CSC, Johnson & Johnson, Easton Associates LLC, Fallon Community Health Plan, Roche, Visiting Nurse Service of New York, The American College of Healthcare Executives, Gaylord Hospital, Leeway, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and Yale New Haven Hospital.

Members of the media are invited to attend with advance registration. For press registration, contact Tabitha Wilde, Director of Media Relations, Yale School of Management (tabitha.wilde@yale.edu). For more information about the conference, contact Yale School of Management Healthcare Club co-leader and conference organizer Krishan Soni (krishan.soni@yale.edu).