The 12th annual Health Connect South conference will take place Sept. 17 at the Georgia Aquarium, bringing together more than 50 prominent speakers and moderators and an expected 1,000 attendees. The gathering has become one of the Southeast’s largest forums for advancing innovation and collaboration in healthcare.
Notable speakers include Corwin Harper, president of Kaiser Permanente Georgia; Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price; and Candice L. Saunders, president and CEO of Wellstar Health System.
“The mission of Health Connect South is to promote innovation and collaboration across healthcare,” said Russ Lipari, founder and CEO of the organization. “Healthcare is very siloed, and there’s really not a place to bring together and convene the best of our health community. Health Connect South does that.”
While there are questions and concerns in the public around healthcare today, Lipari says there are also a lot of good things happening. He noted UPS’s healthcare logistics division, which projects $20 billion in revenue by 2026, as an example of industry growth.
This year’s conference agenda features wide-ranging panel discussions. Topics include personalized medicine, public-private partnerships, philanthropy’s role in advancing care, and improving outcomes across the Southeast.
A panel on innovation in healthcare and university research will include Duke University School of Medicine Dean Mary Klotman; Tim Lieuwen, executive vice president for research at Georgia Tech; and Tim Denning, president and CEO of the Georgia Research Alliance. The session will be moderated by Jimmy Childre Jr., former chair and CEO of Washington County Regional Medical Center.
The conference will also pay tribute to the late philanthropist Bernie Marcus, whose contributions to healthcare and the Atlanta community are widely recognized.
Note to readers: Health Connect South had invited Susan Monarez, who had been serving as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to be part of the event. But after Monarez was fired from the CDC on Aug. 27, the CDC said the federal agency would not be participating at this year’s conference.
