[Sigmed-l] FW: National Health-Care Summit Backgrounder

[Richard Hill]

Is anyone interested in representing ASIST at this meeting?  We have been
invited to send ONE representative.

Dick Hill
-----
Health-Care Reform, or Health-Care Transformation?

Interoperability Summit:
Establishing the Infrastructure for Health Assurance & Disease Prevention

The National Academy of Sciences
June 1 & 2, 2009
[This event is by invitation only]

Summit purpose

In the last few decades, the visions and promises born from the Information
age have brought incredible changes in our lives.  As with all changes,
there are both, good and bad.  Even when the changes, if adopted will have
been good, we have many times shunned it, on account of the general comfort
surrounding that which we have come to know, against that which is proposed
and the unfamiliar, on account of fear.  We are restrained equally from
realizing the full potential that change is able to gift to us, simply
because the left hand is often unaware of what the right hand is doing.  In
either case, the end-result is the same, where we do not receive the
potential benefit, from the change that can either be adopted or
implemented.     
Scientific breakthroughs and advances by mankind have often made apparent
ways to improve the quality of our lives, while lowering the costs of health
care in the areas of health assurance and disease prevention.   Not only are
we now able to learn and connect discoveries faster, but do so more
efficiently and effectively.  At times, our fears have restricted us from
incorporating valuable and timely information against a challenge area.
 Consider that there are communities of interests at both, governmental and
non-governmental levels, whose activities produce immensely valuable
information that can be helpful to Health-Care transformation; whose mission
areas can contribute significantly to enhancing U.S. Health-Care system
quality and effectiveness.  The core mission areas of these entities may not
centrally be directed at driving, or assisting the U.S. Health-Care
enterprise and/or practices improve. Yet, they can certainly help.   In not
being connected to the bigger picture, and in perhaps not understanding the
relevance of that which on the surface appears to be insignificant
information to the whole – we may have simply ignored valuable information. 
Consequentially, we may have failed to act either individually, and/or
collectively upon relevant information, and may have also failed to
synergize with others that have the insight and expertise, to abridge both
the knowledge and human connectivity gaps.
>From our professional areas of expertise, each of us can contribute quite
significantly to the transformation of the whole.  These valuable links are
what we aim to surface and interlink at the Summit.   In fact, it is the
intention that the proposed summit can, and will solidly propose avenues and
means for significant improvement in the American Health-Care enterprise by
leveraging the professional expertise and knowledge resident in many of
America’s finest scientific organizations.
The main purpose of this meeting therefore, is to place forward a set of
vital scientific policy recommendations to the President of the United
States, and his administration, on just how the United States health care
delivery system could / should be transformed rather than merely reformed.
Fact remains that multiple administrations, and multiple decade long
proposed reforms in the US Health-Care enterprise have failed.  We should
not be making the same mistakes again.  Furthermore, the American Scientific
communities have never had a collective and measurable hand in contributing
to, improving upon, the American Health-Care enterprise.  While the Summit
is being spear headed by the American Institute of Medical and Biological
Engineering (AIMBE), the aim is to invite highly relevant professional
scientific organizations that have the wellspring of knowledge and
experience, within a multidisciplinary and an interdisciplinary discussion
framework relating to U.S. Health-Care transformation, in order to generate
forward recommendations to the President.  

VISION:

The Transformation of the American Health Care System from mainly a
diagnostic,  prognostic  and therapeutic approach, to one that fosters
wellness, and incorporates information and practices which seeks to advance
disease prevention, and the arrest of disease manifestation in populations. 
Future state of American Health-Care must be able to comprehensively provide
Americans with highly competent, advanced, and affordable health care, aided
by a highly inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary scientific
infrastructure, methods and means, which at the heart will protect, and
purvey timely information to enable the implementation of the most effective
and efficient medical practices for the patient’s benefit.   This vision
acknowledges and asserts that the scientific community has a very large
role, and a responsibility toward creating the fertile environment, the
conditions, the means and the practices, which can bring about much needed
Health-Care transformations.

Goal 1: Organize a Scientific Community discussion related to Health Care
that will focus on Transformation rather than mere Reform of the Health Care
system. 
Goal 2: Create a holistic view of health by convening all the US Agencies
and Departments who own health related information but are not part of the
delivery system today (i.e., EPA, USGS, USDA, DOE, Commerce, NOAA, NASA,
State, DHS, NSF, etc.) to better understand their independent and unified
roles with the U.S. Public Health System (NIH, CDC, AHRQ, FDA, CMS, HRSA,
Indian Health Service, DOD, VA, etc). 
Goal 3: Convene Professional Societies that have science, technology, and/or
engineering expertise which can be of utility to Health-Care
transformation; to unearth cross-pollinating - co-operative and co-opetitive
opportunities.
Goal 4: Discuss and understand potential societal benefits such as
technological, practitional, cost, and quality of life benefits, to be
leveraged from inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary activities in the
scientific community.
Goal 5: Discuss the potential to substantially demonstrate through R&D and
operational means – the emergence of material, technological and
practitional innovations, capable of connecting emerging technologies,
cutting-edge engineering services and practices to pressing Health-Care area
needs such as, cost containment, dramatically enhancing patient quality of
life, process and procedural efficiencies and effectiveness, and the need
for agile Health-Care structures. 
Goal 6:  Discuss the prospective establishment of a 'Management and
Measurement' mechanism, which aim to tightly integrate functionaries,
processes, and technologies to better benefit U.S. Public Health-Care
enterprise;  which aim to incorporate emerging concepts, while stimulating
and facilitating the multiplied use of open-source and/or publicly developed
technologies, for the purposes of meeting current and emerging public health
needs.
Goal 7: Produce a Report with Specific actionable recommendations to the
President of the United States and his Administration.  
Conference Chair:  Dr. Luis Kun, IRMC / National Defense University

Conference Advisory Committee: Society Presidents or Chairs – to be
announced
Scientific and Technical Advisory Board: to be announced

This meeting is sponsored by the: American Institute of Medical and
Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and technically co-sponsored by the:

• International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE) &
the IFMBE Global Citizen Safety and Security Committee;
• American Association of Engineering Societies (AAES) & the AAES Emerging
Issues Committee; 
• IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS); 
• IEEE Society for Social Implications of Technology (SSIT); 
• IEEE- Communications Society - eHealth Subcommittee (COMSOC); 
• IEEE Reliability Society;
• IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society (EOS); 
• International Council on Medical & Care Compunetics (ICMCC)
• IEEE USA Medical Technology Policy Committee (MTPC)
• IEEE Committee on Earth Observation (ICEO);
•  International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine
(IUPESM)
• IEEE Computer Society (CS); 
• IEEE Geographical Remote Sensing Society (GRSS); 
• American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE); 
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME); 
• National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE); 
• American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers
(AIME); 
• American Institute of Chemical Engineering (AIChE); 
• American Nuclear Society (ANS); 
• Society of Women Engineers (SWE); 
• American Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)



_____
Richard B. Hill
Executive Director
American Society for Information Science and Technology
1320 Fenwick Lane, Suite 510
Silver Spring, MD  20910
Fax: (301) 495-0810
Voice: (301) 495-0900 
________________________________________
From: Robert Mathews (OSIA) [mailto:mathews at hawaii.edu] 
Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 1:48 PM
To: Mr. Richard Hill, Executive Director - ASIS&T
Subject: National Health-Care Summit Backgrounder


Dear Mr. Hill:

It was a pleasure to have been able to speak with you this morning.  Please
find enclosed for your consideration, a backgrounder relating to the
national health-care transformation summit, to be held at the National
Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., on 1 & 2 June.  

I apologize much, for the time compressed consideration that is being
requested of the ASIS leadership. As I had mentioned, this is much beyond
our control.  We look forward to hearing from you on the prospect of ASIS
participation at this very important meeting.   

As an FYI, I will inform my colleague, and general chair to the summit, Dr.
Luis Kun of the National Defense University that we have had a chance to
connect.  I shall request that he ring ASIS, to say hello.  Lastly, I am
also only too happy to receive your comments on the backgrounder, such that
we can improve upon it, and the discussions to follow in June...


Sincerely,
Robert Mathews.
--
************************************************
* Robert Mathews, D.Phil.
* Distinguished Senior Research Scholar
* National Security Affairs & U.S Industrial Preparedness
* Office of Scientific Inquiry and Applications
* Center for Strategic Advancement of Telematics & Informatics
* University of Hawai'i
* Telephone: 315.853.7853 (NY) / 703.655.7124 (VA/WDC)
* Telecopier: 808.933.3473 (HI) / 315.859.1998 (NY)
* E.mail: mathews at hawaii dot edu