Excitement is building in the week leading up to the 8th Annual National Stewards of Change Symposium (June 10-12, in partnership with Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD). Enrollment is at capacity, with public sector, private industry, and non-profit thought leaders and early innovators from across the country. This year’s line-up of speakers is sure to provoke thought and inspire action. Sessions will forge new territory by expanding the range of issues and broadening the scope of services that impact our ability to serve consumers and communities in the future. In particular, we’ll address one of the most critical questions currently looming on the HHS horizon: How do social determinants of health intersect with human service programs to better prevent illness, increase access to services, improve quality, lower costs, and promote well-being? We’ll be exploring how Accountable Care Communities can be designed to serve all the service providers to deliver better outcomes more efficiently? I am looking forward to having this conversation with so many of you.
For the first time this year, SOC will be live-tweeting the Symposium. What does that mean for the health and human services community? For those attending, it’s a chance to spread the interoperability word even further. Attendees can share what they hear by tweeting using the #SOC13 hashtag, as well as retweeting Stewards of Change’s conference tweets. And for those not attending, Twitter offers the opportunity to learn what’s happening at the Symposium by following the conference hashtag: #SOC13. Everyone should be sure to follow Stewards of Change on Twitter (@StewardsChange) if you aren’t already.
As I move into this conference, I am heartened to know that each of you reading this blog share my enthusiasm for the tremendous possibilities offered by interoperability. I look forward to next week when many of us will be together in person and to sharing that work with all of you through Twitter, this blog, our website, and the next greatest tool on the horizon. Stay tuned for the results of this Symposium, as always we’ll post the videos, graphics and presentations to the SOC website.