May 14, 2018 – Leaders and rising stars in the healthcare communications field – in advertising, marketing, medical communications, journal publishing and digital platforms – will get both information about what is going on in Washington healthcare policy and access to key Washington contacts at the Coalition for Healthcare Communication Rising Leaders Conference on Healthcare Policy, according to CHC Conference Chair Jon Bigelow, President, Thayer Pond Solutions.

“The Rising Leaders Conference is intended to provide intelligence that next-generation leaders can immediately take back to their clients and use, while at the same time introduce them to contacts in Washington they might not otherwise meet and help them build their careers in healthcare communications,” Bigelow said. “This is not just another pharma conference” because it helps rising leaders become more involved in the industry’s key issues and “adds perspective to their work.”

To ensure that the conference, held May 22-23 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., provides a laser focus to attendees, Bigelow and others start anticipating the hot issues and searching for the best speakers to address them.

“A year ago, that would have been the organization of the new Trump administration and the committees in Congress. This year, there were many new initiatives taking place at the FDA with an activist commissioner,” he said. “With Congress essentially in gridlock, in 2018 most of the action is happening within the FDA and within the regulatory branches of our federal government.”

Knowing that President Trump would be issuing a policy statement on drug pricing, conference planners included a speaker knowledgeable on the topic. Knowing that FDA Commissioner Gottlieb is looking for ways to expedite drug approvals, “we arranged for an elite panel to dissect the ideas and how they will play out,” Bigelow continued. “And realizing that data privacy was a growing concern, we arranged for one of the country’s leading privacy attorneys to join the conference.”

The Coalition strives to include representatives from government, from the legal community, from the advocacy community and from the press. “We are very pleased to have FDA Deputy Commissioner Anna Abram coming to present FDA’s perspective on the issues,” he said.

The Rising Leaders Conference is a nonprofit and nonpartisan meeting, sponsored by the Coalition for Healthcare Communication, the industry organization dedicated to ensuring the high quality and continued availability of accurate health information to improve patient care, Bigelow explained. The conference also is designed to be interactive. The small-group setting, he asserted, “allows attendees to engage with key inside-the-beltway observers, to ask questions, and to network.”

Additionally, conference planners try to put the experts’ viewpoints in context. “Each year, we end the conference with a panel of industry leaders who offer perspective on the issues raised and why they matter to careers in health communications,” according to Bigelow.

Several comments on last year’s Rising Leaders Conference speak for themselves:

• “Great conference; I learned a lot to take back to my company.”
• “The content and experience of the presenters is the highest quality and more effectively delivered than any other meeting/conference I attended in the year. Having spent 20 years in biotech and now working in the digital publishing realm for pharma/biotech, the information shared is the most relevant and motivational content available to me now.”
• “The networking dinner and reception were great—extremely informative and a good way to kick off the conference.”
• “Excellent meeting!”

Register now for the May 22-23 CHC Rising Leaders Conference on Healthcare Policy, to be held in Washington, D.C.  For more information, go to: http://cohealthcom.org/coming-up/