Southern Health Summit To Explore Opioid Crisis, Technology Advances

Health Connect South isn’t your typical health care conference.

One of the gathering’s central goals is to foster collaboration among leaders and organizations in the industry. A past example is the alliance between pharmaceutical giant UCB and Georgia Tech, forged through the summit, to create a project to explore the potential of predictive analytics to help treatment decisions for people with epilepsy.

The fifth annual Health Connect South will be held Sept. 27 at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.

The theme of this year’s summit is “A Connected Future.’’ The topics will include health care technology such as telehealth, responses to the opioid epidemic and health information advances.

Among the speakers will be Dr. Patrice Harris, an Atlanta psychiatrist who is president-elect of the American Medical Association. Leaders from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Morehouse School of Medicine, Georgia State University and Emory Healthcare will serve on panels.

The keynote address will be delivered by health policy expert Susan Dentzer, who’s president and CEO of the Network for Excellence in Health Innovation (NEHI). She’s also the former editor-in-chief of the journal Health Affairs and a former “PBS NewsHour” commentator.

“It is a privilege for our organization to serve as the connective tissue between health disciplines,” said Russ Lipari, CEO of Health Connect South. “There are so many wonderful health innovations happening across the South that it is important to see the broader view of the progress being made throughout the health industry.”

Here’s a link for agenda and registration.

Andy Miller is editor and CEO of Georgia Health News