MSC forum expands reach, while honoring roots

CLEVELAND – The Jean S. Marx Education Forum has evolved from a local, in-person educational event into a global virtual conference serving sleep and respiratory care professionals. Now in its 26^th year, Medical Service Company’s forum is on track to beat last year’s record of 3,000 registrants, says CEO Josh Marx.

“In 2020, we moved it to virtual, which then unshackled us from having only the Cleveland market to be able to access it,” he said. “And it's been a worldwide conference ever since. Last year, we had six countries represented from our participants.”

This year’s daylong event takes place Nov. 19.

Addressing the future of sleep and respiratory care

The forum’s morning programming features topics like “The Future of HME: Navigating Change While Accelerating Growth,” presented by Alan Morris, vice president of strategy and business development for VGM, and a keynote by John Langell, M.D., president of Northeast Ohio Medical University.

“There’s a lot of talk around where the industry is going from a regulatory standpoint – the direction of the landscape for how the profession and how disease management is evolving,” said Marx. “We got a lot of feedback from our participants over the years that they like a more zoomed out view of what's happening in their profession.”

Education and CEUs for busy clinicians

In the afternoon, attendees split off into two tracks: sleep or respiratory. In all, they have the opportunity to obtain up to seven CEUs, making the forum not only educational but also productive.

“These professions are very demanding in terms of what they're experiencing on the front line, whether that's in the hospital setting, in an emergency setting, in a home care setting,” said Marx. “There's so much that's expected of them on top of the fact that they're required to maintain their own licensure. So, we're just really proud to be able to offer these continuing education credits for these professionals.”

Honoring a legacy of learning

That sense of pride extends to the forum itself. Named for Marx’s grandmother, an advocate and a proponent for education and training who founded the business with her husband Merle in 1950, the event also incorporates the entire MSC organization.

“A lot of our employees participate in the building of this program and get involved in something that they, otherwise, wouldn't in their role as a delivery technician, a respiratory therapist, a cash poster or an intake specialist,” he said. “We bring them along for the planning stages of this and helping the community be healthier and more clinically competent.”

HME News readers can register for the event here. Use the code HMENEWS.