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International Healthcare Management Conference (IHMC)
June 15-17, 2015 -- Gümüşhane/TURKEY
“Local Health Care Services & Global Perspectives”
Concluding Remarks for International Health Management Conference
Yasar A. Ozcan, Ph.D.
Charles P. Cardwell, Jr. Professor
Vice Chair and Director of MSHA Program
Editor-in-Chief, Health Care Management Science
Department of Health Administration
Virginia Commonwealth University
During the past two days we witnessed keynote speeches and presentations in this inaugural International Health Management Conference. I would like to congratulate Drs. Akıncı, Bostan and Kılıç, brainchildren and the organizers of the conference, who worked tirelessly and efficiently from inception of the idea stage to hosting the academicians and guests in Gumushane University. Under the leadership and support of Prof. Dr. İhsan Günaydın, the Rector, Gumushane University proved to be an excellent venue for an international conference with familiar excellent Turkish hospitality. The conference attracted over 120 academicians from 12 different countries including, Austria, Denmark, Greece, Iran, Morocco, Nigeria, Rumania, Saudi Arabia, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, United Arab Emirates, United States of America, and all over Turkey. Additionally over 100 undergraduate and graduate students, as well as 50 health care professionals comprised the attendance to the conference which was accommodated about 30 competent and committed organizing committee members and staff.
Conference motto “Local Health Care Services & Global Perspectives” fitted very well with the content of presentations and the poster session. The four keynote speeches divided into two days were well attended and served as highlight of the conference. The keynotes were moderated by well-known Turkish Health Care Management Academicians, Prof. Dr. Adnan Kisa and Prof. Dr. Sahin Kavuncubasi. Keynotes of the first day were delivered by Prof. Dr. Yasar A. Ozcan and Prof. Dr. Michael County both from USA. Their topics were health policy and reforms (public and medical care provisions), globalization of health services, respectively. Keynotes of the second day included medical truism by Dalia Gali of United Arab Emirates, and Universal Patient Rights by Prof. Dr. Tevfik Özlü.
Beyond the keynotes, conference had three popular workshops including: 1) quality managerial in hospital services, 2) legal problems and solutions for health professionals, and 3) contemporary approaches in health care management and leadership.
Most importantly, the conference offered 13 parallel sessions over two days in the Karaca, Zigana, and Artabel conference halls of Engineering Building of Gumushane University. Each session with 7 to 8 papers moderated by again moderated by well-known national and international academicians.General topics of these sessions included: patient rights, safety and satisfaction;contemporary issues in hospital management including health worker’s satisfaction; healthcare quality; globalization and medical tourism; and health reforms.
Speaking of health reforms, specific to Turkish reforms under the umbrella of Health Transformation Program, conference presentations provided rich information on what worked and what else can be done to fine tune the health care system in Turkey. Various developed countries recognize health as a basic human right and assume collectiveresponsibility for providing access to health care for all citizens.Fast developing new technology and advanced treatment methods,as well asorganization of these efforts tend to generate higher expectations from the health delivery system coupled with incentive arrangements for medical providers may produce overutilization of the services, hence pave the road for increased health care costs.
A simple advice to curb such trends is to look at this issue from both patient and provider side and make necessary policy adjustments as follows: 1) to curb the demand from patient side, for various selective high technology services one must initiate an appropriate co-payment with provisions for those who cannot afford, 2) to curb the oversupply from provider side, one must initiate a value based payment system where the benefit of the technology or the treatment is not warranted, reduce payments to the providers. Of course, these need to be constantly and consistently monitored and enforced to change the overutilization habits. Also like to add that overutilization is also a quality issue, it may harm the patient.
This was very successful conference in disseminating contemporary research conducted on mentioned topics above. I would like encourage everyone who attended to this conference to think continuation of and sustaining what has been started by the organizing committee of first International Health Management Conference. This conference proved to be an important forum of idea exchange and an excellent platform for networking with distinguished colleagues from the region and around the globe. The venue in Gumushane University proved that such conferences can be hosted anywhere. In that vein, I specifically ask our international colleagues to consider and plan hosting the International Health Management Conference in coming years.
I wish everyone happy and healthy life! Safe travels back home. Thank you.
IT IS DETERMINED THAT 2. INTERNATIONAL HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE WILL TAKE PLACE AT KING'S COLLEGE, USA IN OCTOBER 2016
PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL PUBLICATION OPPORTUNITY
We are pleased to announce that the Academy of Strategic Management Journal (ASMJ) agreed to publish a special issue with selected best papers presented at the International Healthcare Management Conference at Gümüşhane, Turkey.
The ASMJ is sponsored by the Academy of Strategic Management, an affiliate of the Allied Academies. The Journal is published by Whitney Press, but the Editorial Board is appointed by the ASM and the Board exercises control over the editorial content of the Journal (http://www.alliedacademies.org/public/AffiliateAcademies/asm.aspx).
The selected best papers wouldbe subjected to the regular peer-review process of the journal. There is a$75 membership fee per author, and accepted papers would need to be formatted according to our guidelines. Membership gives the authors free access to the online issues and a discount on hard copies of the journals.
The ASMJ is a double blind, peer-refereed journal listed in Cabell's Directory and has a 25% acceptance rate. The journal is also indexed in EBSCO, Proquest, Google Scholar, SCOPUS, and several other indexes. The ISSNs for the print and online version of the journal are as follows:Print ISSN: 1544-1458;Online ISSN: 1939-6104.
We strongly encourage you to submit your papers for consideration in this special issue publication of the ASMJ. For more information, please contact Dr. TaşkınKiliç at ihmc2015@gumushane.edu.tr.
SUPPORTED BY HEALTH MINISTRY
