Keynoters address technology, trends, and creative thinking - HFMA's 2002 Annual National Institute

Healthcare Financial Management, June, 2002

General Sessions at HFMA's 2002 Annual National Institute will offer attendees the opportunity to share a range of views from noted and noteworthy keynote speakers.

Canton to Tell How to Compete in Digital Age

James Canton, PhD, president, Institute for Global Futures, San Francisco, California, will share his insights on how healthcare organizations can apply emerging high technologies to achieve a competitive edge at the opening General Assembly from 8:30 to 10 AM on Monday, June 17.

An internationally recognized futurist, author, and entrepreneur, Canton will discuss which leading-edge technologies will have the greatest impact on the future, address how attendees can develop a strategic vision that incorporates the new technologies, and explain how to understand better and manage more effectively the innovative technological changes within their organizations and relate them to their work.

Based on decades of research involving many of the most innovative companies and business leaders worldwide, Canton's highly informative and entertaining multimedia presentation will show attendees how to successfully adapt, profit, and compete in the emerging digital economy of the 21st century. His perspective as a futurist will provide valuable insights and better understanding of the impact of new technologies on consumers, markets, and industry.

Over the past 20 years, Canton has become renowned for the accuracy of his forecasts related to new trends involving emerging technologies, especially those that have the most significant effects on markets, business, and culture, such as personal computers, the Internet, telecommunications, biosciences, applications of satellite technology, intelligence agents, artificial intelligence, interactive television, and virtual reality.

A former executive with Apple Computer Inc. and several other high-tech companies, Canton currently heads a consulting firm that advises clients on the impact of leading-edge technologies. His firm's clients come from a wide range of industries that include both Fortune 500 organizations and start-up companies.

Canton appears regularly as a guest host on the CNN Financial News Network, where he reports on the latest technology-related business trends. He also serves as editor-in-chief of the award-winning 21st Century Online, a digital magazine and talk show carried by the Microsoft Network and on the Internet. Media coverage of his work has appeared on CNN, the "Bloomberg Report," and National Public Radio and in Business Week, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal , and Newsweek. Canton also is the author of the book Future Smart: Leading-Edge Technologies for the 21st Century.

Another of Canton's books, Technofutures: How Leading-Edge Technology Will Transform Business in the 21st Century, is acclaimed by business leaders as a blueprint for how innovation will shape the future of business in the 21st century His latest book is entitled The New Future: How New Science, New Demographics, New Values, and New Consumers Will Transform the Marketplace, the Workplace, and Our Lives.

Cetron to Discuss Trends Shaping Health Care

A pioneer in forecasting, Marvin Cetron, PhD, founder and president, Forecasting International Ltd., Falls Church, Virginia, will discuss trends that are shaping the nation's culture and economy on Tuesday June 18, from 8:30 to 10 AM.

Regarding health care, Cetron observes, "Large hospital corporations and small walk-in medical centers are thriving, while independent hospitals and small chains are being acquired by the large corporations.

Consolidation will accelerate even further as it becomes more difficult to squeeze new savings from the delivery of care and providers must invest in costly new data systems for administration, finance, and customer service." Cetron's address will cover these and other trends with implications for health care, from the growth and aging of the world population to an increased tightening of skilled-labor force markets in the United States.

Cetron was identified as one of the nation's foremost futurists in the cover story, "The Next 50 Years," in the 50th Anniversary issue of US. News & World Report. Cetron appears regularly on television network programs such as "Today," "Good Morning America," "CBS Morning News," "CNN Newsmaker Sunday," "Crossfire," and "Larry King Live." The author of numerous articles and papers, Cetron also has written more than three dozen books.

"Fifty Trends Now Changing the World," a report Cetron wrote with Owen Davies that was published recently by the World Future Society, discusses the implications of 50 trends the authors identify as having the greatest potential to change our lives. An example of one trend noted in the report should give healthcare financial managers pause: "Institutions are undergoing a bimodal distribution. The big get bigger, the small survive, and the midsized are squeezed out."

Cetron's most popular books include:

* Encounters with the Future: A Forecast of Life into the Twenty-First Century;