Calendar
Health Journalism 2014: Program for Thursday and Friday
Click to read descriptions of events having red arrows.
Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday
Wednesday, March 26 |
||
|
3-7 p.m. |
Conference registration desk opens |
Imperial Ballroom |
Thursday, March 27 |
||
|
7 a.m. |
Conference registration desk opens |
Imperial Ballroom |
|
8 a.m.-4 p.m. |
Field trips |
|
WORKSHOPS |
||
|
9-11:15 a.m. |
Crafting compelling health stories This intense and lively workshop will highlight some of the best techniques you can use to bring sparkle to your health and science stories in ways that make important information more accessible, relevant and engaging. The focus will be on a writer’s four power tools: theme and meaning, character development, scenes and structure. If time permits, seminar will include round-robin brainstorming to identify solutions to the most common writing challenges.
|
Mt. Sopris A |
|
How to read medical studies – and write smarter stories Learn how to uncover the flaws in published medical research – essential knowledge for journalists charged with evaluating the quality of evidence and the potential tradeoffs between benefits and harms. Review better ways to frame findings and get tips on how to get answers even on tight deadlines. Get tools to write and produce stories that make your readers and viewers more informed.
|
Mt. Sopris B |
|
|
11:15 a.m.- |
Lunch on your own |
|
|
12:45- |
Separating fact from fiction: End-of-life decisions in the United States What constitutes death – and who gets to decide? When can life support be withdrawn from a patient – and who gets to decide? Recently, controversial cases have brought these kinds of issues to the forefront, raising thorny legal and ethical issues. This will be a primer for journalists who need familiarity with these issues as they report on end-of-life care. Among the questions that panelists will address: What is the ethical and legal framework in the U.S. surrounding end-of-life medical decision-making? How should decisions be made when patients lack decision-making capacity? Do patients or their surrogates have a legal right to “demand” treatment that doctors believe to be unwarranted? What are the rights and responsibilities of surrogates? How do forgoing treatment, physician-assisted suicide, and euthanasia differ in law, ethics, and practice?
|
Grand Ballroom |
What’s the greatest use of Twitter for a health journalist? Panelists will walk us through how to craft the best tweets to inform a health news-hungry public and help journalists cultivate online sources that build a solid reporting foundation and loyal Twitter following.
|
Mt. Sopris B |
|
|
2-3 p.m. |
Spotting the gaps in evidence, ethics and practice Can a cure become a curse? Dialysis and feeding tubes may be life-saving treatments for people dealing with chronic and acute illness. But that may not be what’s best for people who are dying. This panel of palliative care experts will explain the clinical and ethical issues health care providers and their patients must face as they make this difficult transition. It will help journalists see how they can approach these stories properly, and educate the general public about the increasingly frequent decisions frail elders must make.
|
Grand Ballroom |
|
Using data to put local health into context Explore data trends in life expectancy, obesity, physical activity, hypertension and smoking for every county in the United States. Conference attendees will be able to compare the health of men and women at the county level to the health of their peers nationally. They will be able to use data and online tools to write stories and create graphics about their communities.
Download The State of US Health: Innovations, Insights, and Recommendations from the Global Burden of Disease Study, the policy report from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation used in this panel. |
Mt. Sopris B |
|
|
3:15- |
A journalist's guide to clearer writing How do you describe death when you’re on deadline? Two recent and wrenching cases – Marlise Munoz in Fort Worth, Texas, and Jahi McMath in Oakland, Calif. – have been riddled with questions, heartbreak and flawed journalism. We describe how death is determined (brain vs. cardiac), who has the right to decide how such patients are treated and the difference between brain death, vegetative state, coma and minimally conscious state. The terms often are used in ways that are confusing and misleading. Common clichés and metaphors can undermine solid reporting and affect the quality of the conversation among families, professionals and public policy makers. This session will help journalists keep their writing well informed, strengthening their ability to improve the public debate about end of life care.
|
Grand Ballroom |
|
Statistics: Basic tips for better stories Have you stared down graphs, p-values and tables in medical papers and wished you could decipher the statistical methods and language? In this workshop, learn several key questions to ask during your next interview. We’ll highlight confidence intervals, meta-analyses and statistical significance. Have no fear: no prior statistics experience is necessary. Visit the Noise & Numbers blog for interactive aspects of the workshop.
|
Mt. Sopris B |
|
|
4:30-5 p.m. |
Newcomer welcome |
Mt. Sopris B |
|
5:15- |
Official conference kickoff and welcome 
|
Grand Ballroom |
|
5:45- |
A conversation with former HHS Secretary Louis W. Sullivan 
|
Grand Ballroom |
|
7-8:30 p.m. |
Welcome to Denver Reception |
Pinnacle Club (Atrium Tower) |
Friday, March 28 |
||
|
7-8:30 a.m. |
Breakfast available in the Exhibit Hall |
Imperial Ballroom |
|
Networking breakouts
|
Imperial Ballroom |
|
|
9-10:20 a.m. |
Health access in the wide-open spaces For some Americans, problems with access to health care aren't about having a relatively small number of doctors and hospitals to choose from. In large parts of the country, people feel fortunate if there's even one doctor in their small town. Some have to drive 30 or 40 miles to get to that sole provider. Specialty care may be three or four hours away. And many small communities find it difficult to attract and retain professionals, who may feel isolated and overwhelmed. As the Affordable Care Act takes hold, how will it affect the workload for these vital providers? What role can telemedicine play in providing access to care? Can a non-profit, cooperative approach to health insurance bring new options to rural communities? This panel will offer journalists a better understanding of what "rural" health care really means, and how they can pursue ideas for stories that haven't been told over and over.
|
Mt. Sopris A |
The Affordable Care Act got off to a miserable start on Oct. 1. Six months later, how much has it recovered? The political opposition is unabated – but millions of people are getting covered. What have we learned about the first open enrollment season and the start of the exchanges. How big is the gap between the states that implemented and those that turned their backs? And will the states that embraced the law but implemented poorly – for example, Oregon and Maryland – get back on track? Get up to date on the ACA and find out where we might go from here.
|
Mt. Sopris B |
|
|
Medical ramifications of legal marijuana Colorado and Washington have launched the largest uncontrolled experiments in marijuana in the history of North America, with many states sure to follow. Marijuana supporters make wild and unsupported claims about the health benefits of pot and its chemical derivatives; legitimate researchers want to use the legalized environment to conduct effective health studies without falsely promoting another Lorenzo's Oil or laetrile. Is legalization a scientist's dream or a doctor's nightmare? Yes to both. Medical tourists flock to Colorado. State regulators argue over the lack of evidence for treating PTSD. National and local experts will sort out the promise and the dangers of legalization for medicine, health care and health policy.
Click here for relevant stories featured on this panel. |
Grand Ballroom |
|
|
Is your local hospital ready for a disaster? Immediately after the Boston Marathon bombing last year and the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting the year before, nearby hospitals were inundated with scores of victims, many near death. Hospitals in New York City and New Orleans were flooded and lost power during hurricanes Sandy and Katrina. Tornadoes destroyed hospitals in Moore, Okla., and Joplin, Mo. In this session, you will learn how hospitals should prepare for a disaster, and how to evaluate the readiness of hospitals you cover.
|
Mt. Elbert A |
|
|
Freelancers: Editors give the inside story Experienced freelancers already know how to pitch editors at their dream publications: Read and study the publication, craft a pitch perfectly targeted to the publication, and, for heaven’s sake, keep typos out of your story pitch. This year the editor’s panel is going granular. Our panel of editors will talk about production schedules and lead time. They’ll give information on how long it takes the story to go from assignment, through editing, and then publication; and give intel on how often they take stories from new writers. Editors will also bring samples of pitches from stories they’ve assigned and talk about the qualities they like best in their top freelancers.
|
Mt. Elbert B |
|
|
10:40 a.m.- |
Plunging into health care: How to master the beat Are you new to health care, building your beat from scratch? Or interested in how other journalists manage its challenges? A panel of experienced reporters will share tips on how to find answers quickly, stay on top of the news, select what to cover, identify meaningful stories, develop sources, write with clarity and balance, and avoid pitfalls.
|
Mt. Sopris A |
As people live longer, the health care and services they require, especially in the last years of life, become increasingly complex. Meanwhile, the delivery of the care, treatment and services they require becomes more fragmented and expensive. This panel focuses on conditions that contribute to care complexity and expense – frailty and declining mental and cognitive health – and provides insight into the kind of coordinated, wrap-around care needed to best address the needs of the nation’s aging population…and who’s going to be providing it.
|
Mt. Sopris B |
|
|
From production to plate: Food security and safety This panel will explore the many angles of food supply stories. Is your food safe to eat? Can food labeling make us feel safer? How do children and the elderly in America cope with hunger? The topic is broad and the stories are many for reporters eager to explore the different faces of food security and safety.
|
Grand Ballroom |
|
|
Experiments in reducing ER loads Find out how “hot spotting” is being used to control health-care costs around the country. Just 5 percent of the sickest patients account for more than half of U.S. health-care costs, according to the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality. In Colorado, four pilot sites are trying techniques to quell the frequent fliers who wind up in emergency rooms or hospital beds. What are the stories there and across the United States? How high is the tab?
|
Mt. Elbert A |
|
|
Covering prescription drug data For years, pharmaceutical companies have paid handsomely for data about the drugs that doctors prescribe. Now, reporters and the public are getting their first peak at physician prescribing with the release of doctor-specific data by Medicare Part D. This session will explore how to use this data, as well as preview the information that will be released this fall on payments to physicians by pharmaceutical and medical device companies. You'll want to attend this session if you have an interest in the intersection of financial relationships and prescribing.
|
Mt. Elbert B |
|
|
New journalism business models The past five years have seen the rapid spread of nonprofit online news services, driven in part by shakeups in the major media industry. These news models come in all varieties: local, statewide, regional and national, with some focusing on a single topic and others covering several beats. Questions this panel will explore include the factors leading to the online news explosion and the range of financial support for these sites. We’ll look at wheter nonprofit news operations are financially sustainable, the challenges in starting one and bringing it up to scale and then how to measure success?
|
Mt. Evans |
|
|
Noon- |
Lunch on your own |
|
|
1:40-3 p.m. |
Regulating health professionals When health care providers harm patients through substandard care, or even commit crimes against them, we expect licensing boards to quickly step in and take those professionals out of practice. But that’s often not the case. Some boards will allow years of patient harm to go by before stepping in, and then give what amounts to a slap on the wrist. This panel will provide guidance to journalists interested in investigating their state health licensing boards, from showing what happens when and why health professionals are called in front of boards, to giving first-hand examples of the data and records needed to determine if the board is performing its most basic duty: protecting the public.
|
Mt. Sopris A |
|
Grappling with PTSD across society Evidence-based assessment and treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder is spreading from veterans to other people experiencing lasting symptoms after traumatic events. Journalists covering the health beat are often called upon to assess psychological care after hurricanes, shootings, incidents of child abuse or other tragic news events. The panel will explore what journalists need to know about recent research and how it’s changing people’s lives.
|
Mt. Sopris B |
|
|
Covering disparities in oral health While advances such as community water fluoridation have been credited with greatly improving the oral health of Americans in recent decades, serious disparities still exist. Black, Hispanics, Native Americans and Alaska Natives bear a disproportionate share of the burden of oral disease in this country, and members of these racial and ethnic minorities are less likely to get dental care than white Americans. Our panel of experts will look at the factors that contribute to these disparities and efforts to address them.
|
Maroon Peak |
|
|
Commercializing research: Bringing ideas to the market There are thousands of exciting and potentially beneficial ideas in labs all over the country – including basic research in the life sciences, chemistry, engineering, digital health, big data and more. These ideas live in university, government and private company labs, and even in the workshops of private physicians and inventors. But the ecosystem for commercializing health research is complicated and full of obstacles. This panel will discuss the opportunities and the obstacles along the chain of moving great ideas from the lab to the patient.
|
Mt. Elbert A |
|
|
Cutting-edge sports science: From elites to everyone Colorado is a mecca for elite athletes and home to the U.S. Olympic Training Center where advances in genetics, physiology and nutrition are helping scientists tailor training programs to individual athletes. This panel will discuss what the latest sports science means for the rest of us. We’ll discuss the ways genetics influences the body’s response to exercise, how cutting edge training methods developed for elites can help ordinary folks maximize their fitness programs, and what the newest research on sports nutrition can offer people exercising for health and weight loss.
|
Mt. Elbert B |
|
|
Medicare changes: Impact on hospitals and patients Federal budget tightening, increased CMS oversight, and stiffer readmissions penalties have upped the ante for health care delivery systems to provide better care at lower cost. More Medicare patients are being placed on “observational” status. Meanwhile, progressive health care system leaders are figuring out how to produce better quality and safety while curbing overtreatment and waste. Experts will offer insight into stories journalists can consider.
|
Mt. Evans |
|
|
1:40- |
Freelance PitchFest Reminder: If you fail to show up for any of your appointments, you will not be allowed to sign up in advance for next year’s PitchFest. Additionally, be aware that the booked editor will have your name, potentially harming your reputation with that publication for years to come.
|
Grand Ballroom |
|
3-4 p.m. |
Snacks and prize drawings |
Imperial Ballroom |
|
4:10- |
Transparent reporting: Investigating in the open Traditionally, journalists try to keep things quiet while they're reporting to protect their scoop and their sources. Our panelists blow that notion away. We'll present strategies to engage an audience and tap it for story ideas and expertise. Our panelists have used Facebook, Google forms, community events and other strategies to do stories and projects and are rich and well-rounded with a variety of perspectives.
|
Mt. Sopris A |
|
Immigrant health care: National politics, local challenges As immigration reform legislation stalls and the Affordable Care Act continues to restructure America’s health care system, millions of immigrants face increasing challenges when it comes to accessing quality, affordable health care. Among the more than 40 million immigrants living in the U. S. today, there are approximately 11 million who are unable to register for Medicaid or purchase insurance through Affordable Care Act health exchanges. Yet this population already experiences significant disparities in health status and health access. Learn about the impact of immigration policy on health, what the health care system must do to meet the challenge, and how journalists can tell the story.
|
Mt. Sopris B |
|
|
Is technology speeding coordinated medicine? Coordinated care seems like a no-brainer, and something patients should expect -- a team of providers working in sync to meet their physical and mental health needs. But it's much more difficult in actual practice. A panel of experts will talk about research into what works, what doesn't, and why, and specifically how health information technology stands to help solve longstanding problems. We'll also look at the new sets of issues technology itself brings to coordination efforts.
|
Maroon Peak |
|
|
Suicide: Covering prevention, repercussions and survivors Suicide is the nation’s 10th leading cause of death, with the highest rates occurring in Mountain West states. Why do a higher proportion of people who live amid the stark beauty of the area take their own lives, frequently with firearms? Hear from a reporter who has chronicled Montana’s runaway suicide rate, an emergency medicine doctor who studies factors contributing to suicide in the region and a suicide prevention specialist who helps the media report on the topic responsibly.
|
Mt. Elbert A |
|
For years, bacteria received a bad rap. But now, after several hundred years of killing bacteria, we are realizing they can actually help us in innumerable ways. As the body of research in this area grows, it is more likely that you will have to cover the issue from different angles. This session is designed to give you a solid understanding of the human microbiome: why it's important, how it impacts human health and disease, the current state of research, and available treatments.
|
Mt. Elbert B |
|
|
5:40- |
Membership meeting |
Mt. Sopris B |
Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday