Michelle McEvoy, communications associate, New York State Health Foundation:
Is this your first AHCJ conference?
Yes, its fantastic, the energy is really great and because we are a health foundation, we are sponsoring the New York fellows, so is great to meet them and be part of this group of people and being well informed about many interesting topics.
Which workshops have you been attending?
I just attended the nanny state one, can government change our behavior, and I really like the panel about gun violence from the perspective of Dr. Sethi, and how the community and families have to be more involved to prevent all kinds of epidemics. And the another workshop was about Health Policy and the state exchanges.
What was the most impressive statements that you’ve heard from the panelists?
I think in terms of health insurance exchange the most informative thing was the consumer engagement and getting that portion of the new law now before 2014, so doing the outreach and engaging consumers to get them to understand what it is and I think is going to be a challenge for the medical and health care field.
From both workshops, which was better and more interesting for you?
Actually both were terrific, I mean there were the best, great panelists; Dr. Gruber professor of economics, the folks from Mayor’s office and the Philadelphia Department of Public health, very knowledgeable, well spoken, great!
The impact of poverty and obesity in Philadelphia, and other costly public health problems in that state surprised you?
Well you know I think Philadelphia and New York and a lot of urban areas do have high rates of poverty and food desserts, and with New York State Health Foundation we are obviously, we are very in to it, so it didn’t surprise me to hear that, but it was great to hear that they started to see a drop in obesity rates among children. That was something I haven’t heard about, whether they can correlate to health policy changes. I don’t know, but it is encouraging to see.
You told me that you liked Dr. Sethi as a speaker about gun violence. Why?
I think he was a terrific speaker, he was in the front line, taking care of children and adolescents that have gun shot injuries constantly, in a trauma center. I thought he was positioned to give some insights on that.
There are plenty of workshops to attend this afternoon, Saturday and Sunday. Which ones you are going to attend?
This afternoon, lessons from Massachusetts in handling health care cost, and then veterans health stories.
Editor’s note: AHCJ allows a strictly limited number of public information officers to attend its conferences.
