By John Kelly, CEO, Bluegrass Business Media
Numbers can tell us a lot. We can review financial performance,
interpret statistics, contact a potential business partner, monitor
effectiveness of a campaign—and more—all through how
effectively we are able to use numbers.
Numbers, and knowing how to best use them, are good tools to
have in hand when it comes to preparing for your IDN Summit
and Reverse Expo experience as well. The good news is, most of
the work is already done for you.
Every issue of the IDN Summit newsletter leading up to the next
IDN Summit event includes a table of numbers related to
registered health systems. Take a look at this table and you’ll see
that all those numbers put together will give you a pretty good
picture of the business operations of health systems, registered
to date, for the next IDN Summit.
The first row of the table will show you the number of systems
registered, but don’t let that be your only takeaway form this
information. If you scan further down the table, you’ll find a
wealth of information, including indicators of the size of the
system and its operations, as well as financial information, like
annual supply chain spend.
These numbers will continue to change as the Summit
approaches, so be sure to check this feature in each issue of the
IDN Summit newsletter. In addition to appearing in the
newsletter every other week, you can gather this information
from the IDN Summit website page for registered health systems
where you will also find a listing of the individual systems that
are registered. Click on any of these systems and you will be
taken to that system’s website, enabling you to very easily learn
even more about a particular IDN.
Numbers are valuable, and certainly that holds true as you
prepare for the IDN Summit. But unlike other events or visits you
may be involved in, IDN Summit tries to give you a leg up by
setting the table for a good experience with ready access to all
the information and data you need to learn about the systems
before you arrive on site.
If you are a provider planning to attend the IDN Summit, I
encourage you to learn more about your colleagues and their
systems. If you are a supplier, these numbers should provide you
with an excellent head start on preparing for a successful IDN
Summit and Reverse Expo experience.