SAVE THE DATE! – September 22-25th, St. Louis Missouri

An Event Focused on Constructively Bridging the Tension of Usability, Privacy, Security, Identity, and Collaboration for a Trustworthy Health Ecosystem

The DirectTrust community invites all stakeholders interested in improving the state of the health system to a collaborative event focused on trust and increasing resilience and responsiveness within and among systems and institutions. 

We will convene in-person with a focus on imagining the kind of system we want to foster and evaluating strategies to make it so. 

The Gordian Knot as a Symbol of Competing Priorities

The world is an increasingly complex place. As our use of technology grows (in healthcare and more broadly), we increasingly hear about dangerous threats, yet we all need to move forward.  In fact, there is a case to be made that as we navigate and address these new real risks, we can emerge stronger and safer. If we are resilient and responsive to risk, as a result we might be more successful and comfortable. 

Players that are trying to operate organizations in the health ecosystem are balancing responsibilities and obligations against operational goals and altruistic missions. These competing priorities are in tension with each other, tangled up together with one another like a Gordian knot. 

What is a Gordian knot? Legend has it that King Gordious of Phrygia tied an intricate and supposedly impossible knot and that anyone who could unravel it would become the ruler of Asia.  Alexander the Great arrived and with an ostensibly creative solution, cut the knot with his sword.  The problem with his solution (not the only one that is told, but the most common) is that some of the ropes are destroyed in the process. 

The Tensions of the Health Ecosystem

If  all the ropes represent priorities of equal importance, the only valid solution is one that unties the Gordian knot without sacrificing anything. Considering our health ecosystem, we can’t “cut the knot”, rather, we need to relieve the tension.  Better yet, how might we turn these tensions into constructive forces?

The Triple Aim itself represents a great example of priorities in conflict – reducing costs while improving quality is a consensus goal for our industry but extremely difficult to achieve. Today, the health system (and even broader health industry)  is struggling with multiple competing imperatives that pit operations and utility against safety and security.  Often, these are not “either/or” situations, but require an “and” — efforts like patient privacy and patient access.

Possible “Tension” Topic Areas: 

    • How might we provide interoperable solutions and enable reliable individual identification and at the same time ensure privacy?
    • How do we make best use of existing interoperability mechanisms while planning for the future of exchange? 
    • How do we make robust security practices usable?  
    • How can we promote transparency and still protect intellectual property?
    • How do we connect the social services sector with healthcare in a way that respects the needs of both groups? 
    • Which digital health applications are trustworthy and how will we know?
    • How can we provide a privacy preserving and trustworthy way for individuals and their records to be reliably identified and resolved? 
    • How will we balance  potential value with security and intellectual property risks of artificial intelligence and large language models? 
    • How can we prepare for disasters while continuing to run successful operations?
    • Can consensus-based standards development and governance be both inclusive and efficient?
    • How do we promote competition while advancing standards?

So how do we constructively use these tensions? Like a suspension bridge, how can we turn the tension into a positive force?  We want to examine just that at our 2024 Conference, The Future of Trust in Health.   

We invite both the organizations that suffer these tensions and those who want to propose solutions to join us.  We are interested in hearing more about the problems faced in competing priorities situations.  Additionally, we want to hear from those forging the technologies, standards, and strategies that represent the opportunity to use these tensions to constructively support missions or business imperatives. Much of the innovation happening in automation, interoperability, identity, and security today might be used to realign these pressures. 

Potential Participants:

    • Healthcare Organizations
    • Community-Based organizations
    • Accountable Care Organizations
    • Policy Experts
    • Public Health Authorities
    • Artificial Intelligence Companies
    • Identity Companies
    • State and Federal Government Agencies
    • Management Services Organizations
    • Outsourced Services Companies
    • Electronic Health Record Companies
    • Health Information Exchanges and Regional Data Utilities
    • Quality Improvement Organizations
    • Interoperability Technology Companies
    • TEFCA QHINs and California’s QHIOs
    • Digital Health Companies
    • Cybersecurity technology companies
    • Clearinghouses and Healthcare-focused Financial Services Companies

Meet Us In St. Louis!

St. Louis provides a central location for us to convene diverse stakeholders to discuss ways to “untie the knot” and reassemble these threads into a bridge to a trustworthy and more comfortable future.

Meet us in St. Louis September 22-25, 2024 at the Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark. This great location is between Ballpark Village and the home of the St. Louis Cardinals, Busch Stadium, and Kiener Plaza with a view of the iconic Gateway Arch. 

Our program will provide lots of time for informal networking as well as formal collaboration activities interspersed with panels and presentations. There will be good food and opportunities for socializing throughout. We will be offering sponsorship and facilitation opportunities for organizations who are interested in raising visibility and value high-touch interactions with key healthcare and technology partners. 

More information to come our Call for Proposals and sponsorship opportunities this winter, with registration opening in spring. 

For now, please mark your calendars and make plans to join us in September 2024!

This post was contributed by Scott Stuewe, President and CEO of DirectTrust.