CHSPH HSAO ATTENDS D.C. HEALTH POLICY CONFERENCE, HOSTS WINTER LUNCHEON
In the span of just a few weeks in February, Health Services Administration students met with key health policy leaders on both the national and state level to learn about major health policy issues facing our region and nation. Just as early states had begun casting votes in each party’s 2016 presidential nominating contests, students from the Health Services Administration Organization (HSAO), the student organization of Health Services Administration majors, traveled to Washington, D.C. to hear from health policy insiders at AcademyHealth’s National Health Policy Conference on Feb. 1-2. Eight HSAO members and their advisor, professor Anna Foucek Tresidder, attended the conference, which focused on the 2016 election and its impact on health policy. The plenary speaker, former Democratic governor of Kentucky Steven Beshear, discussed his experience implementing Kentucky’s
Medicaid expansion and state health insurance exchange “Kynect” under provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Other conference speakers discussed issues such as new and changing payment and delivery models, coverage and access, and population health. The group also met with Washington’s two U.S. Senators, Patty Murray (D) and Maria Cantwell (D), during their trip. At the conference, the student founds themselves in elite company. The only two other universities who brought students to the conference were Harvard and Stanford. “Attending the conference allowed us to incorporate and apply all that we have learned within our curriculum to the present real-world scenarios surrounding health policy,” said HSAO president Misty Murphy.
Keynote speaker Laura Kate Zaichkin
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A few weeks later, on Feb. 19, the HSAO brought a relevant health policy discussion directly to the EWU Spokane campus at its 10th annual Winter Luncheon. Keynote speaker Laura Kate Zaichkin from the Washington State Health Care Authority’s Office of Health Innovation and Reform came to discuss Accountable Communities of Health (ACHs) in the state of Washington. ACHs are part of the state’s Healthier Washington proposal, a plan for statewide health innovation. The Health Care Authority has designed ACHs to be public/private entities working regionally on collaborative decision-making to improve health care, developing shared priorities and strategies for population health, and innovating within financing and delivery systems to better integrate physical and behavioral health care. Over 100 students, faculty, and health professionals attended the luncheon, including representatives from Washington State University, Whitworth University, Providence, Eastern State Hospital, Better Health Together, Molina Healthcare, and the Spokane Regional Health District. Murphy said the diversity of representation at the luncheon added tremendous value to the discussion after Zaichkin’s remarks. The event also included the inductions of three accomplished local health professionals into the Upsilon Phi Delta Society for health care administrators: Peggy Currie, Chief Nursing Officer for Providence Health & Services; Mary Selecky, Washington State Secretary of Health, retired; and Lyndia Wilson, Division Director for the Spokane Regional Health District.