So Long From Dallas

DALLAS – The Press Ganey National Client Conference wrapped up this afternoon, as more than 2,000 attendees headed home following two days and more than 50 presentations by industry experts and Press Ganey faculty.

During the event, attendees heard insightful presentations from actor and Parkinson's activist Michael J. Fox and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

Breakout sessions featured detailed analyses of hot topics such as value-based purchasing (VBP), accountable care organizations (ACOs), patient satisfaction and new clinical quality measures. A number of the sessions featured up-to-the-minute reports on new federal regulations; overflow crowds heard about the final rules for the ACO/Medicare Shared Savings Program and the fiscal year 2014 standards for the Hospital Inpatient Value-based Purchasing program.

Representatives of hospitals, medical practices, home care and ambulatory care centers came to Dallas to learn about those and many other issues in clinical care, patient satisfaction, strategy and leadership, and technology and training.

One of the central themes that emerged from the conference was the importance of senior leadership in creating a culture of transformation. Daschle said innovation isn't possible in health care without the active participation of the C-suite. The theme also arose repeatedly in the international track, showing that the need for executive leadership in quality improvement is global.

Another, not-too-surprising theme that emerged was gaining physician buy-in to clinical quality and patient experience improvement campaigns. What was different this year was a sense that the tide has truly shifted toward far greater involvement by physicians. Perhaps some combination of a recognition among physicians of the need to collaborate more closely with hospitals through new entities such as ACOs and new pressures from reform on quality metrics has caused this shift.

A final theme -- again, no surprise, given the nature of the meeting -- was transparency of provider-level data. And yet, the level of involvement of patients and communities in many projects described in the breakout sessions was notable.

That's it for this year's conference. Next year's meeting will take place in Washington D.C. from Nov. 12-14. See you there.