Whether you're looking for networking, advice, new products
— or a shoulder to lean on, Medtrade officials say you can
find it at this year's fall show.
While the 31-year-old event will again offer components
including the New Products Pavilion, Accreditation Central and an
Expo floor crammed with 550 exhibitors (sold out at full capacity),
next month's trade show has been designed to aim attendees toward
the reality of HME's new world.
To be held Nov. 15-18 at the Georgia World Congress Center in
Atlanta, Medtrade 2010 will offer 140
sessions in 11 educational tracks ranging from operations and
information technology to human resources and staff development.
While some sessions will focus on emerging opportunities in retail
sales, others will concentrate on Medicare business strategies
under the strain of changing regulatory policies and continuing
reimbursement cuts.
Medtrade organizer Nielsen Expositions fashioned the mix with
the help of an Educational Advisory Board looking at each session
and a Blue Ribbon Task Force of providers and manufacturers from
throughout the industry to generate ideas.
As a result, a 12-session track on competitive bidding has been
added, an accessible lifestyle home will be built on the Expo floor
and officials have turned 2009's panel discussion on consumer
advocacy into an entire "Consumer Advocacy Day," extending
invitations to attend to more than 100 area advocacy
organizations.
Colette Weil, managing director of Summit Marketing and a member
of Medtrade's Educational Advisory Board, believes the competitive
bidding sessions are "critical" for every provider. "Competitive
bidding is the primary force changing the industry's structure,
service and beneficiary views," says Weil. "It was imperative that
we develop programs by and for providers to evaluate and learn
about the far-reaching impacts."
The NextGen Medtrade Accessible Home will be a 1,650-square-foot
house, complete with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, built directly
on the Expo floor. The house will showcase both accessible design
and an array of products in a series of typical home health
scenarios that demonstrate how people can remain independent as
they "age in place" or face chronic illness or disability.
The ambitious display should help providers identify possible
expansion areas for their businesses, according to Medtrade Group
Show Director Kevin Gaffney. "Hopefully, providers will see new
business opportunities that can help distinguish them from their
competitors and provide additional services for their customers,"
he says.
But attendees are not the only ones he's hoping will see the
accessible home. Gaffney says show producers are also hoping to
attract the attention of national media to the demonstration home,
which could in turn highlight the industry's role in serving
home-based patients.
The NexGen home comes from Bellevue, Wash.-based iShow, which
produces demonstration homes for various trade shows such as the
Consumer Electronics Show and the International Builders Show. It
will be built by All American Homes and shipped in sections to be
assembled on the Expo floor.
"The options and ideas this home will showcase are exciting,"
says Gaffney, "and the cutting-edge products will show real-life
solutions for Americans who are looking to avoid long-term care or
alternate living scenarios."
Gaffney is equally enthusiastic about Medtrade's expanded
Consumer Advocacy Day on Nov. 18. "The role of the consumer in
health care choices is increasing every year," he points out. "We
know that informed consumers make the best choices and that is our
goal," Gaffney says, adding that it's important consumers get
involved in the lobbying effort to protect home care.
"The program we have designed heavily emphasizes that their
participation in the process is essential if they want to remain
able to make choices regarding their health care and the providers
they work with," he says.
The all-day consumer program includes specialized education in
the areas of grassroots lobbying, mobility and respiratory care,
along with a tour of the NexGen Accessible Home and access to the
floor exhibits.
Medtrade is also aiming to get providers thinking not just about
survival but success. Keynote speaker Clifford Schorer,
entrepreneur in residence at the Columbia University Graduate
School of Business, will kick off the conference with a talk called
"The Power of Innovation and Creativity in Today's Turbulent
Business Environment: A Roadmap to Success in the HME
Industry."
"Cliff's approach will focus on how thinking out of the box,
employing new business models and applying state-of-the-art
technology can catapult a company to new levels of growth and
profit," says Gaffney. "These are the ideals we want Medtrade
attendees and exhibitors to take home from the event and share with
their employees as they seek opportunities for the present and the
future."
Use Code Home2000 for a $20 discount at
www.medtrade.com! Don't forget to
visit HomeCare in Booth 2069.
The View from Inside the Beltway
Want the latest on competitive bidding? Elimination of
the first-month purchase option for power wheelchairs?
Get up-to-the-minute news on these and other current legislative
and regulatory issues at the American Association for Homecare's
Washington Update, scheduled at Medtrade on Nov. 17.
"With every member of the House and one-third of the Senate up
for election in November, Washington is bracing for significant
shifts in power that may alter the Washington landscape after the
elections. At the AAHomecare Washington Update, we will discuss
what the elections mean," says the association's Tyler Wilson,
president and CEO.
The session will also include guest speaker Stan Collender, one
of the nation's top experts on the federal budget process, who will
provide an insider's look at how the government's fiscal condition
will affect HME providers over the next several years. Collender
has worked for three members of the House Ways and Means and House
Budget committees.
Getting a pulse on the activity in Washington is essential for
providers and manufacturers to keep up with efforts "to preserve
the service and products" the industry provides, says Medtrade Show
Director Kevin Gaffney.
"The addition of Stan Collender's inside knowledge of how
Washington works will not only detail how things are done inside
the Beltway but will give attendees a clear plan of how the HME
industry can best work to emphasize the role it plays in keeping
legislators' constituents healthy and at home while reducing
overall costs to the country's health care budget."
Education Tracks
- Accreditation Central
- Business Operations
- Competitive Bidding
- Human Resources, Leadership & Staff Development
- Industry Updates
- Information Technology
- Legislative & Regulatory Issues
- Sleep/Oxygen & Respiratory
- Rehabilitation & Assistive Technology
- Reimbursement
- Sales & Marketing
For information and a complete schedule, see href="http://www.medtrade.com">www.medtrade.com
