 Dear Friends
As we just celebrated our 26th Annual Meeting in Denver,
Colorado it is great fun to look ahead to NAHC’s
27th Annual Meeting which will be held in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida on October 12-15, 2008.
Fort Lauderdale has a reputation
as one of the most beautiful spots
in America. For many years it attracted
young people in search of warm
weather and a hot time during Spring
Break. These days just about
everyone—adults as well as
young people—look forward
to coming to South Florida. The
sun is great most of the year and
the white powder sand beaches attract
people of all ages. When
most visitors are asked to characterize
the city in a word they inevitably
say “fun.”
Fort Lauderdale, like all of us
who used to go there, has grown
up. It has become the year-round
preferred Atlantic Ocean destination
for millions of people every year. It
now has a serious side hosting
thousands of educational experiences,
conventions and trade association
meetings every year.
Part of its charm is its proximity
to Miami and Miami Beach which
are less than a half hour away. Palm
Beach, another major metropolitan
area is an hour away and Naples
on the Gulf Coast, is only one
and a half hours from Fort Lauderdale
by car. The Bahamas are located
invitingly an hour away by plane
and Orlando, site of Disney World,
is only three hours up the road.
Like the first NAHC Annual Meeting, this
one was scheduled in October because
it coincides with the end of the
Congressional Session. Inevitably
there is legislation pending in
which we have a great stake. The
fact that we are all together in
a meeting allows us to focus our
responses with laser-like precision
on the Congress. Taking a lesson
from our founding fathers we learned
early that in unity there is strength
and that divided we fail. The meeting
gives us an opportunity to rededicate
ourselves to the values we believe
are important. This includes
treating every patient as we would
our parent or our children. It
means providing the highest quality
of services to aged and infirm
Americans. It gives us an opportunity
to say thanks for the many blessings
that we have received. Finally,
it provides the opportunity for
us to learn and to set the course
for future achievement.
I invite you to come and join
us to:
- Greet old friends and
make new ones. Be with people
who share your mission and values.
- Learn the latest in new technology,
clinical protocols or management
breakthroughs, which will lower
your costs and increase your ability to
provide quality care.
- Listen to what experts have
to tell us about preparing for
the future.
- Rekindle the flame which led
you to select a career in home care & hospice.
- Energize your mind in preparation
for your next creative breakthrough.
- Refresh your body by taking
a break from the difficult jobs
you do in caring for the aged, infirm,
dying and disabled.
- Feed your soul. It is hard
to imagine a more spiritual place
than Fort Lauderdale.
THIS WILL BE THE FINEST MEETING
YOU HAVE EVER ATTENDED, AND THE
BEST INVESTMENT YOU CAN EVER MAKE
IN YOUR FUTURE. YOU HAVE MY WORD
ON THAT. I look forward to seeing
you in Fort Lauderdale on October
11-15, 2008.
With great respect and admiration,
Sincerely,
Val J. Halamandaris
President
 Dear Colleagues:
It is an honor and a pleasure to invite you to attend the 27th
Annual Meeting of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice
which will be held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
on October 12-15, 2008.
This letter is being written only days after the NAHC Board meeting
which was held in South Florida. In addition to forging
a plan to deal with the proposed changes in the Medicare Prospective
Payment System, we had the opportunity to tour the Fort Lauderdale
Convention Center and several hotels which NAHC plans to use. As
the guests of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors
Bureau, we went out on a dinner cruise and enjoyed a guided tour
of the city. Having done this, we are all
confident that you and other conference attendees will have a
fabulous time and enjoy a great learning experience in Fort Lauderdale.
Fort Lauderdale was chosen to host this
meeting for several reasons.
First, it is an exciting venue blessed with beautiful beaches
and ocean vistas ranking high on most people’s list of places
to visit. Second, it represents a great
value; both airfares
and hotel room costs are comparatively low keeping the meeting
in range for even the smallest home care and hospice organizations.
Third, the greater Fort Lauderdale community has gone
out of their way to welcome the special people of home care and
hospice. Fourth,
Florida, and particularly Fort Lauderdale,
will play an important part in the presidential election of 2008. The fact that
our meeting will take place less than one month from the election
in the most important media market in the U.S. will increase the
odds of our attracting presidential candidates from both parties.
Finally, Florida is a trendsetter predicting
what will happen in America. In the year 2012, the U.S. will have the same
ratio of elderly to total population that the state of Florida
had in the year 2000.
Symbolism is also important. Florida will give us the opportunity
to structure programs which address the theme of the meeting:
Home Care & Hospice: Charting New Frontiers in Health
Care. The
respected columnist and television commentator, George Will famously
said, “Demography is destiny.” He was referencing
the baby boom generation –all 78 million of them – who
are about to move into their retirement years. We have only
to look to Florida to experience the full implications of “senior
power.” There is no doubt that baby boomers will change
traditional attitudes toward aging and retirement. They
will rebel against any efforts to place them—even in extreme
old age—into an institutional setting. They will insist
that programs, services, and technology be available to keep them
independent and in their own homes.
While baby boomers are the strongest advocates of home care,
the nation’s current group of seniors are just as passionate
about it. Home care is also the number one priority of the disability
community. Finally, employers are learning that the losses
in productivity because of absences related to elder care are
far greater and longer lasting than such losses associated with
child care.
With every year that the baby boomers approach retirement the
imperative will grow greater. This will force a change in the
very nature of home care, which has been primarily a post-hospital
service, to a program which is preventive and proactive. Americans
more and more want intervention to prevent the onset of a disability
and not just the mitigation of disabilities once they have occurred.
Home care will increasingly play a role in chronic disease prevention
and management. New technologies installed by home care companies
will both prevent and compensate for the physical or mental deficits
that sometimes occur with age. The move from treatment for chronic
disease to prevention is just the crest of a broader wave. Home
care agencies will provide a
broad range of services to help seniors and disabled persons to
manage their financial affairs, to learn,
to stay physically fit, and to be productive
members of society.
Most of all they will help seniors and members
of their families to find peace and security.
In his recent speech to the home care community, Horst Schultze,
the former CEO and Founder of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel chain provided
valuable lessons saying, all human beings want three things. “First
they want to know that a product or service is of high quality,
that it is pure and safe. Second, they want timely service
and they do not want to wait forever. Third and most important,
they want caring, meaning they want to know that you care about
them, that your central focus is their well being. Many people
said that we made them feel at home. Come to find out this is
not at all what they meant. They wanted to feel the way they did
in their parent’s home. We did our best to make them feel
this way.” Home care and hospice nurses do much the same
thing; they go to great lengths to lift
the spirits of others,
which is one of the reasons why our services are so appreciated.
I invite you to join us in Ft. Lauderdale,
Florida as we explore and chart the new frontiers of health
care delivery. We
all know that home care and hospice will be heart and soul of
U.S. health care. The question is: How will this transition
take place and what can we do to maintain the highest quality
of care for all U.S. citizens?
Sincerely,
Elaine D. Stephens,
Chairman of the Board |
