Roxanne Chamberlain Attended the AHLA Annual Meeting

In June, Roxanne Chamberlain, MBA, FACHE, FMSP, CPMSM, CPCS, Senior Director of Medical Staff Services at Baystate Health, Inc. and 2019 NAMSS President-Elect, attended the American Healthcare Lawyers Association (AHLA) Annual Meeting in Boston, MA. Health law professionals attend the meeting each year for the most current information and analysis on a variety of legal issues affecting the healthcare industry. The annual meeting included thoughtful, practical, solution-oriented sessions, luncheons, and networking events.

John P. Ryan, President and Managing Partner, Hall Render Killian Health & Lyman PC and Heather Brace, Senior VP and Chief People Officer, Intermountain Healthcare, delivered the Meeting’s keynote address, The Future of the Health Care Workforce. The keynote session focused on the leading influences affecting the healthcare industry and their potential legal challenges. Experienced health law professionals facilitated breakout sessions on practice-management topics, top-physician compensation risk areas, understanding and addressing conflicts of interest at non-profit organizations, and coping with the mystery and reality of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare.

Roxanne attended many of the Meeting’s AI learning sessions, which included AI liability, and how it could affect the standard of care in medical malpractice cases, as well as how AI bedside assistance will simplify doctor and nurse workloads. Roxanne also attended sessions about healthcare policy and hazard prevention where she learned that efforts to reduce healthcare costs have made little progress, as states continue to file lawsuits regarding the Affordable Care Act. Additional sessions surrounded topics on practitioner conscious clauses and hospital-acquired infection reduction rates in 2018-2019.

Drug price transparency was another popular topic, as well as how states and the federal government are combating rising drug prices. Nine states have passed drug-price transparency laws and seven other states are in the process of passing legislation.

Roxanne also attended sessions related to healthcare data and telehealth and noted that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce continues to call for a federal data privacy law due to inconsistent state laws and the number of data breeches. The healthcare sector continues to embrace digital invocations as consumer demand increases. Healthcare law professionals recommended that hospitals take an interdisciplinary team approach to implementing telehealth proposals and their legal staffs should have multi-faceted telehealth competencies to handle with regulatory issues.

As NAMSS liaison to AHLA, Roxanne stands by as a resource to the membership and is available to answer additional questions or provide additional information about AHLA.