DURING THE COVID CRISIS, IN PERSON MEETINGS HAVE GIVEN WAY TO TELECONFERENCES AND VIDEO PRESENTATIONS. JEFF GOLDSMITH IS AVAILABLE TO PRESENT TO VIRTUAL AUDIENCES (AT AN ATTRACTIVE REDUCED RATE). CONTACT HIM AT: (434) 979 9524 OR AT TCOYOTE@MSN.COM FOR DETAILS.

Current Lecture Topics Include:

• Reaching Beyond COVID: In this lecture, Jeff Goldsmith looks beyond the immediate financial challenges to hospitals and health system to the years 2021 and 2022. These years could be challenging if the immediate financial downturn lingers or deepens. Recessions have predictable impacts on healthcare payment systems and on the demand for care. Mr. Goldsmith has observed five prior recessions, and discusses the major risks hospitals and health systems face, and how to set strategic priorities in an uncertain time.
• Seven for the Twenties In this lecture, Jeff Goldsmith looks ahead to the next decade, and explores both the challenges and potential breakthroughs that could change healthcare in the United States. These include: the challenges of drug resistant infections and cyberterrorism; artificial intelligence (AI); potential major progress in critical care and the fight against schizophrenia; the outlook for baby boomers; Jeff’s surprising candidate for the dominant corporate actor in healthcare; and the outlook for hospitals.
• Disruption: Navigating the Turbulence in Changing Health System: Health system executives have focused increasingly on the potential for technology and large corporate enterprises disrupting their traditional care enterprise. They have also neglected the disruptive potential of economic and political forces that may alter how healthcare is paid for. This presentation divides the potential disrupters into three broad classes: technology (e.g. AI/machine learnings, digital care and telehealth, genomics, etc), corporate entities (Amazon, CVS/Aetna, Optum,. etc) and economic./political developments (“Medicare for All”, rising popuilsm, recessions, etc.) and handicaps the potential risks they pose in particular local and regional markets. It also examines how disrupters can be partners in the strategic development of the health enterprise.
• What Makes a Health System?: Health care organizations have grown steadily larger and more complex over the past thirty years. Most of them call themselves “health systems”. But are they really systems and have patients and those who pay for care benefited from this growth and complexity? Why has “health system” operating performance deteriorated sharply since the historic Affordable Care Act coverage expansion? How can health systems make changes in their operations and management that patients notice? What does it mean to be a health system?
• Opiate Crisis: Tip of a Population Health Iceberg: In 2016, more than sixty thousand Americans died of drug overdoses, 42 thousand from opioids. Drug death are the SuperStorm Sandy of public health threats, likely to claim more victims than the AIDS Epidemic. Yet it is the most visible manifestation of a more troubling trend-declining American life expectancy. In both 2015 and 2016, American life expectancy declined, the first two-year decline since the early 1960’s. During the same two years, the US spent nearly $7 trillion on healthcare. What are the underlying drivers of this deeply troubling trend., and what can policymakers and the care system do about it?
• 2037: A Healthcare Odyssey: In 1986, in Hospitals’, Jeff Goldsmith looked ahead fifty years to the US healthcare system in 2036. In 2016, Jeff revisited these forecasts, noting both accurate and inaccurate predictions, and looked ahead yet again to the health system in twenty years time. In 2037: A Healthcare Odyssey, Jeff examines the digital health revolution he foresaw in his 1986 piece, and how it is likely to affect care. He also looks at the concluding chapter of the baby boomer’s saga, as well as promising new progress in the neurosciences and produces a fresh forecast for the US health system in twenty years.
• Slouching toward Value: The Future of Health Care Payment: One major theme of health reform has been to change how healthcare is paid for to reward higher value care. In a $2.8 billion industry, the uncertainty about future payment models has created confusion about strategic direction in hospitals and systems, physician communities and health insurers, as well as anxiety among patients and their families. Ironically, a Democratic health reform has produced Republican outcomes- high degrees of consumer economic exposure, narrowing networks, and a welter of confusing new choices. Meanwhile, new payment models- pay for performance, bundled payment, accountable care organizations, patient centered medical homes- have been given fresh impetus. How will all these experiments turn out? How SHOULD healthcare be paid for? This talk focuses on the winners and losers in the search for more accountable and affordable care, and the models and strategies that are likely to prevail.

Rates and logistical requirements may be discussed by contacting Jeff Goldsmith.