Joe Zenel, MD, FAAP

By Joe Zenel, MD, FAAP
Editor, AAP ConvergeNCE (Official Conference News)

It may strike you that receiving "2010 convergeNCE ePreview" in April for the October 2010 American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference and Exhibition (AAP NCE) is premature, but because so much has happened since our last AAP NCE, we want to make sure you are well aware of what will be available when it comes time to register.

The AAP NCE, October 2-5 in San Francisco, will help attendees plan for the changes looming in the world of health care.

Since October 2009 we have had federal passage of health care reform legislation, the earthquake in Haiti and subsequent earthquakes in China, Chile, Mexico and Sumatra, the H1N1 Pandemic, the ongoing national recession, and an exponentially increasing global focus on electronic communication and information distribution, all of which have significantly impacted or will have significant impact on the delivery of health care to children and adolescents throughout the world. As you read "2010 convergeNCE ePreview" we hope you agree with our rationale for previewing sessions on health reform, disaster planning and technology in the office setting.

Science fiction for decades has had its characters communicating and exchanging information through computer screens, hand held devices, miniature attachments to clothing and even implants to the retina and brain. Today you cannot walk through a public place without noticing someone using a cell phone, ride an airplane without a flight attendant telling someone to stop working on a spreadsheet and turn off the laptop, or undergo admission to a hospital without someone typing information or retrieving information from a computer screen. And all around, you cannot help but see that just about anyone of any age is familiar with a keyboard whether using a few select fingers or both hands. Information technology is here today providing access for all with hopes to improve effectiveness, efficiency, safety and security while decreasing costs and calamity. A large part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) provides significant monetary incentives for the adoption of electronic records. Let's face it, we need to embrace electronic health records into our practice; the public expects it and culturally we have been dreaming about it for decades.

As you know, the AAP holds a premier symposium, Pediatrics for the 21st Century (Peds-21) one day before its NCE to address emerging issues that will affect the practice of pediatric care in the 21st century. This year's symposium is appropriately dedicated to health information technology and promises to instruct us on why this technology is necessary, why the United States government chooses to invest in it, how it helps incorporate the concepts of the medical home, quality improvement and patient safety, how it can ensure secure exchange of patient records in a clinical practice, and how it will help us with maintenance of certification.

The 2010 AAP NCE will also offer hands-on exhibits and other sessions on adopting new information technology into clinical practice such as the Pediatric Office of the Future, and the lunchtime learning series on Education in Quality Improvement for Pediatric Practice (EQIPP) and PediaLink. These events should help clinicians consider implementing technology to make office operations more efficient, reduce costs, and optimize and improve patient care. 

A number of classic science fiction novels tackle controversial social issues. Whether you agree with all aspects of the recently passed health reform act or not, the act did help our nation's children by increasing health care coverage for children in the U.S., providing age-appropriate benefits in the medical home and improving access to care by funding primary care and pediatric subspecialty workforce improvements. How all of this will happen is unknown for now, but the October 3 plenary, "American Health Care at a Crossroads: Implications of Health Reform to States" promises to answer this uncertainty.

Science fiction has frequently portrayed global and galactic cataclysms. The recent earthquakes throughout the world, the threat of new countries acquiring nuclear arms, the atypical past winter weather with its blizzards and floods, global warming and the H1N1 pandemic all point out that unpredicted environmental disasters do occur, and we are frequently unprepared for them. And children are the ones most affected by them. The 2010 AAP NCE will have sessions highlighting disaster preparedness and how and why we should be involved. The 2010 NCE also looks forward to recognizing the voluntary efforts by many to help the earthquake victims in Haiti.

More than 30 years ago, a popular science fiction movie thriller portrayed a patient undergoing a total body scan to determine the effect of an invading alien creature. Back then, the promise of body scanning was just beginning to appear at major academic centers.  Now we have the capability of imaging the brain in so many ways we cannot help but speculate these methods promise early diagnosis of mental disorders in youth. The October 3 plenary presentation, "Are Imaging and Other Technologies Helpful in the Diagnosis of Mental Disorders in Youth," will discuss the scientific validity of these tests as diagnostic tools and whether we are speculating too much … at this time.

By now you suspect I read science fiction. I do and have done so since first grade, when I read the picture book, You Will Go to the Moon and was entranced by the movie, Things to Come. I believe one reason we enjoy pediatrics so much is because we see the promise of the future in our patients and we look forward to seeing what will come. All of us at the AAP hope you too look forward to seeing what will come.