Executive Insights

It is my honor to share with you my first Executive IDN Insights article. My career has allowed me to experience a nice mix of opportunities with IDNs, GPOs, supplier organizations, and industry events. I know it was important for me to study, work hard, be courageous, and do many things on my own to progress with my career; however, I credit any success I have achieved to the people who have helped me get to where I am today. Those people include family, friends, neighbors, teachers, and more. They also include the many people I have met through my work and volunteer experiences. The role that I now serve with the IDN Summit allows me to continue nurturing and growing these critical relationships while informing the direction we’re developing through events and communication channels.

Several months ago, I was invited to partner with the IDN Summit Team to develop the educational agenda for the IDN and ACE Summits. Although I have a multitude of topics that I would like to hear about at the Summits, I know that the interests and talents that all of you possess are the source of topics that should be offered. I have observed attendance and participation in the different IDN and ACE Summit sessions, interviewed you at the events, reviewed formal survey results, and scheduled time with many of you to capture your topic ideas and recommendations. Many of the things that are important to us in this industry don’t change quickly or don’t change at all while other advancements require us to be on top of how we can do our work differently. The IDN and ACE Summits seek to balance the foundational “must talk about” with the cutting-edge topics while staying committed to creating opportunities for experienced and emerging talent to share their knowledge. Both events are focused on doing what they can to keep content fresh and relevant to our future success, inspire and motivate us, and allow us opportunities to give back, grow professionally, and pay it forward.

Several themes were consistently referenced through my recent conversations with many of you and through survey results from the 2024 Fall IDN Summit. While cost savings continues to be the main interest, there is recognition that we need to innovate strategies for resiliency, technology, trading partner efficiencies, and talent development. Be on the lookout for these topics on the Spring IDN Summit Agenda and challenge us to offer what you need to achieve success in your work. Brent and I will go deeper on these topics in upcoming Executive IDN Insights to complement the educational offerings experienced at the IDN and ACE Summits.

Our interest is to make sure that the IDN Summit is one of the “go to” events for providers, suppliers, GPOs, and other industry partners. Please reach out to me directly or to any member of the Bluegrass Business Media team if you have feedback for us to consider implementing into educational content, this newsletter, or upcoming Senior Executive Forums. I hope we will see you at the Spring IDN Summit in April, the ACE Summit in June, and the Fall IDN Summit in August.

Thank you all for making the IDN and ACE Summits what they are today and what they will be in the future!