Health TechNet's April meeting focused on the controversial subject of Outsourcing and Offshoring. This is a topic of much political and operational interest and has many applications in the health care industry.
Suniti Ponkshe, a Health TechNet member, organized and led the discussion. The discussion focused on trends in health care outsourcing, the value outsourcing can bring, trends in offshoring, why offshoring has become a big issue, and the pros and cons of these solutions.
Key speakers were: 1) Jack Wagner, CFO, Adventist HealthCare, where he was instrumental in outsourcing their IT department. He also outsourced his IT department at his prior institution. Jack provided a CFO's perspective of why outsourcing is a viable option. Adventist is a large healthcare integrated delivery system serving Maryland and New Jersey. 2) Ann Smith, VP of Federal Sales for Tumbleweed Communications, discussed her company's experience in an offshore unit and how that didn't offer them a viable solution. Tumbleweed offers secured internet messaging services to enterprise and government agencies. They recently decided to close their off-shore unit in India. 3) Don Asmonga, Director of Government Relations for American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), talked about issues related to offshore transcriptions. Finally, 4) Joe Kendall, a partner in Shaw Pittman's Global Sourcing Practice, wrapped up the featured topic with legal and contractual issues to consider.
We also had a "five minute update" by Dr. Dan Peterson, CEO of Cereplex, Inc., which provides systems to hospitals and clinics to help manage infections, antibiotic usage and antibiotic resistance. An update was also provided on the investor’s meeting that will be held on June 17th at 8:00 am.