This Week's AMGA Annual Conference to Focus on Challenges and Opportunities

More than 1,200 healthcare executives and frontline workers are expected to attend the event.

The AMGA Annual Conference opens tomorrow, and the event will focus on pain points and opportunities for medical groups and health systems.

The American Medical Group Association addresses four areas for its members.

First, the AMGA serves as a connector through the annual conference, leadership councils, and more than 50 in-person or virtual educational offerings throughout the year. Second, the organization helps members with innovation such as bringing members together with disruptors and conducting population health quality improvement programs. Third, the AMGA helps members to improve their performance through a benchmarking survey prepared by AMGA Consulting and a collaborative called High-Performing Physician Enterprise. Fourth, the organization advocates on behalf of its members on issues including payment reform, value-based payments, telehealth, and chronic care.

The AMGA Annual Conference will address pain points at medical groups and health systems, says AMGA President and CEO Jerry Penso, MD, MBA. "There will be sessions that address workforce, health equity, and how to lead in value-based care, which involves some of the innovations that medical groups and health systems are looking at," he says.

For example, one session features four leading health systems that are focusing on in-basket management—the messages that physicians and care teams receive from patients. During the coronavirus pandemic, those messages exploded and many of AMGA members are now experiencing three times the amount of messages that they received prior to the pandemic, Penso says. "They are figuring out with their workforce and technology how to address in-basket messages."

The conference is also going to feature disruptors, he says. "We have Marc Harrison, MD, who works with the venture capital firm General Catalyst and leads Health Assurance Transformation Corporation. He is going to be talking about the disruption that private equity is bringing into the healthcare marketplace."

The conference will also address opportunities for medical groups and health systems. For example, one of the keynote speakers, Trend Hunter CEO Jeremy Gutsche, will be talking about the healthcare opportunities related to artificial intelligence.

Another area of opportunity emphasis at the conference is the alignment of health systems and hospitals with their physician enterprises, Penso says. "We will be bringing leaders of health systems and hospitals together to discuss some of the critical issues that they face, including integrated planning, financial management, workforce, and care transitions."

About 1,200 people, including healthcare executives and frontline workers such as physicians and nurses, are expected to attend the conference, which is being held in Orlando, Florida, through Friday.

Penso says the conference is designed to be forward-looking.

"I want participants to gain fresh perspectives on the healthcare of tomorrow that they are going to be responsible for creating," he says. "As an example, our board chair, Dr. J. Stephen Jones, who is president and CEO of the Inova health system, has a powerful message he is going to deliver about the importance of healthcare leaders embracing technology such as AI."

Penso says he hopes that everyone who attends the conference will leave with at least one actionable takeaway that they will incorporate into their medical group or health system operations. "I want that takeaway to make care better for their patients, serve providers, and lower the cost of care," he says.

A HealthLeaders editor is attending the conference and expect coverage of the event later this week.