 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Annual Conference Report
by Luisa Buada
CIRHM Executive Director
 |
|
Tanya Case, CEO of Prime Advantage Health Care of Lawton, Oklahoma and Jim Teevans, J.D., DRIS Consultant, speak with conference participants during a break out session. |
The Second DRIS Annual Conference was successfully held at the Waterfront Plaza Hotel in Oakland’s Jack London Square, January 28th through January 30th. The conference opened with a reception on Thursday evening, January 28th, which included a fresh seafood bar, a poster display put together by each of the DRIS sites and a wide-screen presentation of the DRIS Initiative from the CIRHM web site. Some 50 participants from the four current DRIS sites, Lompoc, Humboldt-Del Norte, Imperial and the Indian Wells Valley as well as Siskiyou a former DRIS site, attended the meeting. Members of the DRIS Advisory Committee and CIRHM’s Board of Directors also were present. This year CIRHM chose to invite California foundation program officers, federal and state officials, health plan representatives, as well as other persons interested in the development of integrated systems in rural communities.
The participants spent two days together hearing informally from each other, hearing from the DRIS evaluator as well as hearing about what’s in store for DRIS during the coming year. There were two plenary session speakers, Tanya Case from Lawton, Oklahoma and Gary Fulbright of Bolivar, Missouri, who spoke on the ups and downs of developing the managed care systems in their respective rural communities. DRIS site participants had the opportunity to meet with the two speakers in smaller sessions to learn more of the details concerning the lessons learned in establishing their health systems. Mike Fadden of Rural Health Consultants–the feasibility consultant for the DRIS Initiative, was able to review his feasibility methodology in another small group session.
Participants were pleased with the discussions, information, relevant examples and excellent handouts. Comments regarding the conference as a whole were very positive. Some of the comments from the participants describing the conference and what they enjoyed most are recorded to the right.
Read more about the conference by clicking here.
© CIRHM