#HelloHighlights: Yale Healthcare Conference In 6 Photos

In April, I attended the 15th Annual Yale Healthcare Conference on the Ivy League campus in New Haven, Connecticut. Approximately 600 professionals and medical students attended the sold-out event to engage in multidisciplinary and instructive discussions concerning current healthcare issues. My highlights from the conference with the theme of Reimagining A Diverse And Empathetic Healthcare System, Changing Perspectives on Delivery & Disparities.

Lisa Chau / Via Private Collection

This year, a special Thursday evening panel, focused on the role of women in healthcare, was added to reflect on two recent trailblazing milestones:

* 150 years of women at Yale University

* 50 years of co-education at Yale College

Lisa Chau / Via Private Collection

The occasion was kicked off by a standing ovation for JD Thompson Fellow Dr. Vivian W. Pinn, retired Founding Director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health at the National Institutes of Health. Her long and illustrious career includes an extensive list of leadership roles, including 88th President of the National Medical Association (NMA) and current Chair of the NMA Past Presidents Council.

Dr. Pinn’s alma maters honored her outstanding work --

* Wellesley College presented her with the Alumna Achievement Award

* University of Virginia renamed its medical research and education building to “Pinn Hall”

Lisa Chau / Via Private Collection

After an inspiring keynote delivered by Dr. Pinn, five female leaders assembled on stage to share their journeys navigating careers healthcare --

* Donna Lecky, JD, MBA. CEO and Co-Founder, HealthVenture Corporation. Managing Director, HealthVenture Capital. Co-Founder, HealthHavenHub

* Ingrid M. Nembhard, PHD, MS. Associate Professor, The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania

* Gail D’Onofrio, MD, MS. Professor of Emergency Medicine, Yale School of Medicine

* Amanda Skinner, MSN, MBA. President and CEO, Planned Parenthood of Southern New England

* Moderator: Heidi Brooks, PHD. Senior Lecturer in Organizational Behavior, Yale School of Management

The panelists discussed opportunities for women to rise in solidarity, and lessons learned throughout their professional lives. While it has been scientifically proven that diverse teams perform better, women encounter additional barriers to success. Their abilities are underestimated, they lack of role models, and as Dr. D’Onofrio bluntly stated, “Women are harder on women.”

As part of leadership, Skinner implored the audience to stay aware and look carefully at their own behavior. Lecky concurred that women can and should help other women up, with an emphasis on sustainability. After lifting up others, teach them how to stay up and keep moving up. Dr. Nembhard credits her career to all the mentors she’s had along the way, who were coincidentally all female.

Lisa Chau / Via Private Collection

The next day, CMO of CareMore Dr. Vivek Garg delivered a touching opening keynote, “Reclaiming healthcare in the 21st century”. He wants to “redesign care from a place of empathy” while addressing industry-wide problems such as:

* Too much complexity

* Too many stakeholders

* Distorted incentives

* An aging and sicker population

No easy feat, for certain.

Yale School of Public Health Dean Sten H. Vermund noted that "reimagining healthcare requires creative thinking and practical solutions.

Lisa Chau / Via Private Collection

“During the executive panel, we saw a demonstration of a groundbreaking personal ultrasound product by Butterfly Network and heard from the CEO of a large payer about how they could work together to make this innovation more accessible to providers and patients, both in the US and abroad. It was a compelling example of how active and persistent collaboration between the realms of technology, financing and medicine can lead a revolution within the healthcare industry,” explained Tal Gurevich, graduate student at the Yale School of Public Health. “Of course, access, cost and quality questions remain, but it demonstrated that collaboration is certainly a well-paved, if not yet a well-trodden, path on the way to democratizing healthcare. The conference was a great way of reimagining healthcare delivery as it should be, a collaborative enterprise.”

Lisa Chau / Via Private Collection

As the banner in the Yale School of Management hallway reads:

Imagine. Inform. Invest. Inspire.

Working together to build a stronger community – now and forever.

“Healthcare industry players know the system must evolve towards a more patient-centric experience,” explains Melody Gao, Healthcare Analyst at Fitch Ratings. “Healthcare is complex, and while the current system is far from perfect, more initiatives targeting this end-goal are emerging -- whether it’s leveraging the use of technology, improving care coordination, or creating patient-friendly diagnostic devices. Healthcare is personal and follows an individual for a lifetime; the care provided by the system should reflect that.”

As Yale School of Public Health Research Assistant Vivian Vigliotti @viv15 tweeted in closing:

“Technology has always bridged the uncomfortableness of today vs tomorrow” ... we exist as social beings, but our “social” existence is changing, so must our medicine #telemedecine #YaleHC2019 #YaleSOM #YHC2019