User Conference 2007: What Did You Miss?
They came from across the country – all 361 of the conference attendees – and they had a blast, judging from this year’s feedback. The 2007 User Conference was our biggest, most information-packed (and fun) to date.
For many participants, coming to the User Conference is an annual highlight. Why come back every year?
“I have come to learn more about athenaNet and how to better utilize all the tools that are offered. I also like to meet other users to compare notes and learn what tools work best for them in their day to day operations,” said Ethel Kober, Operations Manager at Carolina Health Specialists, Myrtle Beach, SC. “I am also interested in where athenahealth is going in the future – what new services and products will be available. Our group is very large and unique and as we continue to grow, we look at the different products and services that we feel would best benefit our practice and our patients.”
“We have been clients since 2002, and one of the things I like most about the User Conference is seeing examples of other athenahealth clients’ successes – we then can compare successful approaches to similar issues,” said Mark Chapman of The Hughston Clinic, PC.
Many participants also want to make sure they’re making the most of athenaNet. They enjoy getting new ideas for using athenaNet to improve practice performance and profitability.
“I am here to learn how to better use athenaNet – to get more familiar with all the functionality and make sure we take advantage of all the tools available,” said Christine Scarberry-Peters of Healthworks in Ohio. “We’ve been live with athenaNet for two years, but there’s still more we can learn. The User Conference also helps us get a broader perspective. What are we missing? What can we do better? We come away with a fresh look at how we can continue educating our billing staff and improving our practice revenue.”
After breakfast and a general session for all attendees, participants signed up for five sessions throughout each day of the conference. Sessions provided hands-on guidance at individual computer terminals, insight on optimizing practice performance, and conversations with athenahealth executives and other health care industry leaders on strategic assessment and direction.
“The sessions are phenomenal,” said Marjorie Mancini of ViaHealth. “This is my second year at the User Conference. It’s a top notch conference. It’s always good to get confirmation of what we’re doing right. But we also come to get reminders of what else we could be doing with athenaNet.”
In addition to this year’s sessions, we held our first Leadership Summit for senior members of practices and for lead physicians/decision makers. The Summit focused less on the specific use of athenahealth® services and more about our collective roles as leaders in the changing healthcare environment. Nancy Koehn from Harvard Business School facilitated the session using a case study/mini-lecture approach.
Feedback on the Leadership Summit was terrific, particularly around enabling attendees to step back from their day to day worlds to focus on the broader healthcare setting and how they want to lead their organizations within the changing environment. Participants felt that athenahealth could support them in their evolution by providing big-picture products and services such as benchmarking of practices’ customer service, publication of practice quality information, and analyses that support investment/product line expansion decisions.
Participants were also interested in checking out athenaClinicals, athenahealth’s unique EMR solution. With ongoing product demonstrations and sessions that highlighted the implementation and use of athenaClinicals, participants got a real-world, hands-on experience of athenaClinicals [see the story in this issue].
There was plenty of time for networking in between sessions, during lunch, and at the evening events. “There’s a lot to absorb and we really value exchanging ideas with other practices,” said Tracy Rada of Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Specialists. “We brought lots of business cards this year.”
Participants also had their favorite highlights to share. “I enjoyed hearing Jonathan Bush and Todd Park speak. It’s always inspiring,” said Wendy Vien of Memorial Hermann Hospital. “I also walked around Boston last night for fun – it’s very different from Texas!”
We hope to see you next year. For more conference highlights, visit www.athenahealth.com/campaign/conference2007.
