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Closing Key Note Mr. Jim Lackey, Chairman and CEO Passport Health

The beginning of day two came too quickly after the festivities of Friday night, but Jim Lackey got everyone's attention with a phenomenal speech. Mr. Lackey is chief executive officer and chairman of the board for Passport Health Communications, Inc. This morning he spoke about his experiences upstart and the growth of his extremely successful company. His story is every Owen student's dream. He was able to deliver this early morning talk with humor and passion that had the room sitting on the edge of their seats. In the end, he gave his personal advice to achieving success as the leader of a company.

It was evident that Mr. Lackey believes that success comes as a result of personal leadership and passion. First, a successful company requires lots of personal commitment in terms of finances, time, and energy. Second, build a product or provide a service you are proud of and can be passionate about selling. It is an additional benefit is the ways the product can benefit costumers' lives. Third, Mr. Lackey makes the point to serve everyone inside and outside the company. Finally, Mr. Lackey takes a lot of stock in personal improvement. He encouraged attendees to never stop learning and expand on talents. What do you do well? Take that and expand it. The most important skill he recommended is to learn to delegate now. He spoke of the empowerment it brings colleagues when work is delegated to them.

His insight was extremely beneficial and even more important his character is commendable. I would argue that everyone walked out of that room wanting to work for Jim Lackey!

HCBA Day 1 SnapShots

 

Panel: Consumer Driven Health Care

Consumer Driven Health Care

Moderator:

Larry Van Horn, Faculty Director Healthcare MBA Program, Associate Professor of Management

Panelists:

Timothy Gary, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

Carleen Haas, VP of Talent Strategies at Humana

Chris Parks, CEO of Change Healthcare

“General Comments on Consumerism”

Gary

Consumerism works to a point that people want to be involved and make their own health care decisions. Consumers want transparency of the system. The baby boomers generation wants information. The generation is having a disconnect with tying monetary expense with health care benefits. People of that generation want good health care services, but rarely consider the cost aspect.

Haas

The term “consumerism” in the health care industry is not about cost shifting, but rather the technology that delivers actionable information. Consumerism is “about education, involvement, and some skin in the game”. Humana saved millions of dollar by getting people to go through behavior change. Having transparency and having education lead to better outcomes. Consumerism is a lot about education, understanding the choices, and having system and technology to obtain that information.

Parks

Parks agreed with Gary that people just want the right health care without worrying too much on the cost. The demand change will be slowly driven by mainstream. Individuals will not be able to pay for the rising premium. Once the individuals spend money, they begin to ask the questions about the right kinds of health care system that suits them.  Ultimately, health care is a service; it must be paid for in some way or another.

(The panelists then transitioned into the discussion on politics and healthcare. The possible healthcare policy change from McCain or Obama if either one is to be elected President.)

“Consumerism in the future”

Parks

The individual will be more accountable for their health care expenses. There will be new nuances that the employers want to get rid of, but at least it was a static cool. In health care, no one knows its exact behavior and policy from year to year. Companies used to do 5-8 year plans for their employees, but nowadays, companies that do 2-3 years are considered to be lucky. Over the next 10 years, time spam will get shorter and shorter. This constitutes easy transition. In health care, there will be much resistance, and much caution in employee shifting. The shift will be who is bearing that cost of health care.

Haas

We are in a society where health care is an entitlement now. Medicine today costs higher than ever. The procedure incentive is not align with the doctor anymore, but with the patient. Doctors are willing to perform shorter procedures and receive less revenue. Shifting accountability and getting out of the entitlement mode.

Gary

Unless you change the mentality that health care is an entitlement, you are not going to change the system a whole lot.

(The panel ended with a fun, interactive Q$A session.)

Panel: Health Care Technology: Pharma, Biotech,and the FDA

Panel: Health Care Technology: Pharma, Biotech,and the FDA

Moderator: Dr. Kenneth Holroyd – Asst. Vice chancellor for Research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Panelists: Keith Gregg, Dr. Charles Hart, James Herman

At the Acorn Ballroom, the moderators and speakers started by introducing themselves and their experiences in the field. The moderator Dr. Kenneth Holroyd began to ask rounds of questions to the individual panelists.

The first topic discussed was the promising area for new development and new venture. While Mr. Greg mentioned that the area for investment resides in the betterment of efficiencies in the current system, Dr. Hart compared the topic of gene therapy with the current exploration of stem cells. Gene therapy was popular 15 years ago. Based on the logical, almost fantastic theory of putting antivirus into human genes to cure diseases such as cancer, gene therapy involves lots of technology and knowledge for development. Due to this use of large amount of technology, the FDA did not understand how to regulate it, for a single problem stems from one specific technology will hurt the entire industry survival. Similarly, on the current popular topic of stem cells, the result promises to cure diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and diabetes. However, in addition to the funding issues, the biology aspect of the knowledge is still not well understood. The FDA must make sure that stem cells are well regulated. Overall, the two ideas in biotechnology consist of good, valid theories, but the lack of knowledge in the fields prohibits development and ingenuity.

Another topic discussed was the counterfeit products, where Mr. Herman shared his views on the danger and prevention of counterfeit products. In a wholesale store, more than 50% of the products purchased through the Internet are counterfeit products, and a majority of these products come from overseas, with Asia being the #1 supplier, closely followed by Latin America.  These counterfeit products do not necessarily represent completely different drugs than what is being described on the packaging box, but rather products that are packaged by the wrong dosage. Some are expired products that are being repackaged, and some are diluted products. To prevent counterfeit products from entering the market, track and trace systems for products have been used. However, that hasn’t been very effective. The FDA is now setting up offices in foreign countries in hopes to better police these products through inspection. The pharmaceutical themselves are also organizing a counterfeiting team, working with education and inspection. There are also Internet teams that monitor suspicious sites and report them to the FDA. The prevention system for counterfeit products is expensive, but consumer protection ranks higher priority.

Additional discussion:

Drug development companies seek funding through raising money themselves. With current economy, most companies might have to “slash and burn” the staff and find buyers (although most buyers buy the product, the science, but not the company). As a result, staff and employees will suffer again.

The safety of products is a problem. For example, the products that go to a Middle Eastern country will face the problematic storage conditions. The same product, not so much as repackaging or anything, but in the mean time, what has happened to the product through storage and handling.