MI Health Forum to provide the healthcare system with innovative prescriptions

24 - 25 May 2012, Barcelona, Spain.
Finding different ways of providing better healthcare has never been more necessary. The growth and ageing of the population together with a restrictive economic climate call for a review of the current healthcare system structure to make it capable of offering better quality without an increase in health centre and system budgets. MI Health Management & Clinical Innovation Forum was created to respond to the challenges facing the sector by studying the latest trends and national and international success cases.

Are ACOs (Accountable Care Organisations) and PPPs (Public-Private Partnerships) the solution to guaranteeing the future of the healthcare system? Are they valid in the current climate? These are some of the questions that will be discussed at the MI Health Forum. The event, which will also feature an exhibition area, will analyse innovation management at all levels of the healthcare system.

For Josep Maria Piqué, CEO of Hospital Clínic and President of MI Health Forum, the idea is to "share proposals and strategies among GPs, managers and the healthcare industry on how to facilitate the speedy and efficient transfer of new ideas and know-how to the productive sector by applying innovative solutions in healthcare that allow us to help our health system in a way that is sustainable over time."

The sessions will be divided into four blocks: Clinical Knowledge and Innovation Management: from Idea to Market; Technologies for Health System Transformation; Innovation in the Management of Healthcare Organizations; Sustainability of Health Systems. Chronic Care Management, Telecare and the impact of Information and Communication Technologies in healthcare, promoting innovation among healthcare professionals and success cases such as Kaiser Permanente are some of the topics that will be analysed.

The list of keynote speakers includes Ron Kikinis, founding Director of the Surgical Planning Laboratory, Harvard (Boston, USA); Andrew Dillon, CEO of the National Institute for Health & Clinical Excellence (NICE), UK; Hung Chi-Tim, CEO, Central Kowloon hospital cluster (Hong Kong); and Mercè Balcells, Researcher at the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Division.

The arithmetic of innovation
Innovative solutions that have always characterised healthcare because of their scientific nature are no longer just a desirable cultural fact but have become a necessity. Healthcare budgets have been one of the main targets in economic austerity strategies that all public administrations have implemented in recent months. In 2012 in Spain, autonomous communities will spend around 6% less on health than they did the previous year: 1210.95 euros per person, compared to 1288.58 euros in 2011.

In the opinion of the President of MI Health, "managing abundance held no secrets but managing restrictive resources obliges us to sharpen our imagination in order to transform health support processes and make them more efficient and tuned to the real needs of citizens." A common goal in which "mutual cooperation between health professionals, managers and politicians, the medical industry in general and the patients themselves, who will have to play a more active and participative role and assume responsibility in healthcare decisions in general and in those that affect them directly" will be essential, said Piqué.

A scientific committee formed by twenty healthcare experts from different Spanish hospitals, health ministries, the Federación Española de Empresas de Tecnología Sanitaria, medical colleges and business schools has collaborated with Fira de Barcelona.

The forum has the support of twenty institutions, such ads the Catalan and Basque governments, the Federación Española de Empresas de Tecnología Sanitaria, the Colegio de Médicos de Barcelona, the Sociedad Española de Directivos de la Salud, and the leading hospitals (Red Itemas and Regic, that account for 80% of Research Investment in Spain). Its first edition will be held on the 24th and 25th of May 2012 in the Palau de Congressos at Fira de Barcelona's Montjuïc Exhibition Centre.

For further information, please visit:
http://www.mihealthforum.com