A two day conference on geriatric health just took place in Long Beach, CA. Since society is aging, there is a growing need for specialist healthcare professionals. This conference aimed to figure out methods of enhancing geriatric health care, while helping the professionals develop their leadership skills. Participants include: nurses, health professionals and physicians, but the conference is focused on the business side of geriatric health.
The event was a great opportunity for participants to learn from geriatric health care leaders vis-à-vis the physician and managerial side, according to conference course chair, UCLA Professor of Medicine and SCAN Health Plan Medical Director, Dan Osterweil, M.D. This is necessary since, as Osterweil notes, the majority of those with a medical degree don’t have any business/finance background and this very soon becomes somewhat problematic.
In addition, given that within the next 20 years, a fifth of all Americans will be 65 or older, it’s crucial that geriatric care becomes “more efficient and less costly.” But in order for that to happen, those in the healthcare industry need to work on their management and leadership skills. And it is this that was the focus of the conference.
The annual Leadership and Management in Geriatrics (LMG) Conference was sponsored by SCAN Health Plan, in conjunction with the California Geriatric Education Center and the UCLA Academic Geriatric Resource Center.