NEPO hosted its 10th Ethnic Physician Leadership Summit on September 25th, 2010 at the Hilton LAX Hotel in Los Angeles.  As Healthcare reform remains at the forefront of physicians concerns in this era of change.  These concerns continue to center around ways to provide affordable and accessible care to the ever increasing diverse, underserved populations, and the need for health information technology to help improve the quality of the care provided in the face of dwindling resources.  This year’s Summit was focus on the implementation of healthcare reform passage, transition of health information technology (HIT) and the current status of health disparities and vaccines. 

The Summit kicked-off with presenting this year's Ethnic Leadership Award to Dr. Ben Medina for his outstanding leadership and passion in improving access to healthcare for the underserved communities in San Diego County.  Dr. Medina's journey to be a doctor and his continuous dedication to provide for the safety-net community in one of the poorest cities in California is truly inspiring.

The agenda packed day was filled with riveting presentations that left many attendees requesting for more time for presentations for the next Summit.   Presentations from the Health Reform panelists encouraged ethnic physicians to use their voices and share their experiences with policy makers to be able to give access to healthcare to newly insured consumers.   The Health Information Technology panels gave current information on work of the Regional Extension Centers, the state electronic health information exchange plans and the training programs offered by the regional consortiums through some of the community colleges.   Dr. Sandra Perez, during her reactor statement reminded everyone that there are still many ethnic physicians providing for the safety-net and the uninsured that will be challenge with transitioning to electronic health records.  Continual and persistent outreach to those physicians will be needed.    

The afternoon session with expert panelists on health disparities and vaccines, educated attendees about the importance of vaccination as preventative care for many potential deadly diseases that have disproportionately affected our communities of color.  Dr. El Amin declared that the passage of health reform should be "an opportunity for [practitioners] to do a better job of vaccinating adolescent and adults."  Dr. Richwald challenged all practitioners to, "know more than [their] patients and know enough to answer [patients] questions [about vaccines.] Dr. Valdez highlighted work he has done to engage patients as a key strategy to increase screening and vaccination and shared that patients has a lot of fear of the unknown to health, safety and side effects of  vaccines.  Dr. Betsy Thompson encouraged practitioners to get standing orders of the vaccines and send reminders to patients.  Dr. Brooks closed the panel presentations with the reality that the root cause of disparities in immunization rates is multi-factorial and it persist in the face of multiple agencies, governmental and non-governmental working to eliminate them.  He also states that improving rates will require strategies that overcome societal, patient-related and provider-related barriers.  

The conference ended with final comments from the future of medicine, provoking and passionate medical students that inspired everyone to make changes upon returning to their respective communities. 

This year we had over 160 in attendance.  If you missed it, we hope you will mark your calendars for next year.  The conference materials will be posted to the NEPO website soon.  Many questions were left unanswered however we will soon have responses sent to all attendees via email as well as posted on our website.

Speakers and Presentations

Speaker Bios and Abstracts

HEALTH REFORM: HOW IT AFFECTS PHYSICIANS AND THEIR SAFETY-NET PATIENTS

Lucien Wulsin, Jr.

• The Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act
• Covering the MIAs: Counties, Federal Reform, and a State Waiver
• Summary of Health Reform Legislation
• Health Reform Timeline
  

• Health Care Reform 2010 – Effect on Physicians
• Accountable Care Organizations and Medical Foundations: Opportunities & Risks of New Payment and Delivery Models – Francisco J. Silva, CMA

Ellen Wu

• Health Care Reform: What It Means for Communities of Color
• Fact Sheet on Final Bill Disparities

“How Health Care Reform Benefits You” Flyers

• American Indian & Alaskan Native Families
• Asian and Pacific Islander Families
• African American Families
• Chinese
• Khmer
• Koreans
• Latinos (Spanish)
• Latinos (English)
• Tagalog
• Vietnamese

HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: REACHING MEANINGFUL USE

• Health Information Technology – Lisa Folberg
• ARRA HIT Professional Workforce Development Project – James L. Comins, RN, MSN
• Health Information Technology: Reaching Meaningful Use – William E. Beighe

HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: REACHING MEANINGFUL USE - REACTOR PANEL

• The “Meaningful Use” Regulation for Electronic Health Records – Mark Savage
• Meaningful Use Table
• Consumer-Patient HIE Principles
• HIE Consumer Principles press release

“OPEN MIC”

• Health Reform and Health IT-The CMS Perspective – Betsy Thompson, MD
• Environmental Health Injustice – Dr. Ralph DiLibero
• ECFMG Flyer – Sarala Rao

HEALTH DISPARITIES AND VACCINES

• Vaccines: Science & Application – Gary Richwald, MD, MPH
• HPV Vaccine Patient Education Intervention – Armando Valdez, PhD
  • Slide 37 Video
• Health Disparities & Vaccines – Betsy Thompson, MD
• Disparities in Immunization Rates in Children & Adults – Oliver Brooks, MD

Immunization Action Coalition

• The Immunization Action Coalition
• Guide to Contraindications and Precautions to Commonly Used Vaccines
• Immunization Action Coalition - Diseases & Vaccines
• Vaccine Index- Hepatitis A
• Vaccine Index- Hepatitis B
• Vaccine Index- HPV
• Vaccine Index - Pertussis
• Vaccine Index - Influenza

* If you would like a copy of the Summit booklet and/or CD with presentations, please contact us.  Please note, there is a limited quantity left.

Click on a summit title to view its contents: