Infusion conference looks 'homeward'

ORLANDO, Fla. - Health care is “going home” and the upcoming National Home Infusion Association's annual conference aims to help attendees plan for that future, say organizers.

“Everything is going home,” said Jennifer Charron, vice president for clinical services. “We are letting them know what's coming both in health care and in general—the payment structure and the future of care is at home.”

This year's event will be held May 22-25 in Orlando. The event features educational sessions divided among clinical, leadership and reimbursement tracks, and two half-day reimbursement and executive pre-conference programs.

The backbone of most of the educational offerings is how to do more with less, while preparing for a value-based payment structure with quality outcomes, says Charron.

“A lot of the reimbursement courses are related to how we can do things better and how we can maximize what we are doing,” she said. “The clinical piece is really focusing on the standardization of care and being able to get those measurable outcomes.”

Session topics include adopting digital healthcare technologies, audit-proofing the reimbursement process and preaching the future of specialty pharmacy.

One particularly timely session is “Safely Treating Patients with Addiction.” Addicts hospitalized for treatment are often dealing with infections like endocarditis and soft tissue infections, that require long-term antibiotics, says Charron.

“Addiction is such a big problem,” she said. “This is a perfect opportunity, after those patients are admitted, to try to get the services to keep them going in the right direction on the home infusion side.”

Two keynote sessions, “Not Enough Hours in a Day? How to Infuse Time Management and Productivity into Your Life,” by Laura Stack, president and CEO of The Productivity Pro; and “The Future of U.S. Health Care” by Mike Lovdal, an adjunct professor at the Columbia Business School at Columbia University, tie nicely into the overall themes of this year's conference, says Marilyn Tretler, vice president of communications. The former will be a fun session to guide attendees on how to prioritize their lives to fit everything into a busy schedule, while the latter will offer his vision of the future.

“He can give the 30,000-foot view about healthcare trends and how the whole healthcare industry is going to be impacted, and then narrow it to how it relates to our industry,” she said.