MARQUETTE -- "Innovation in Healthcare Through Technology" - the theme for this year's Annual UP Roundtable Healthcare Conference.
"This year our conference focuses on technology and healthcare and where the technology is going, now and in the future, so it's a very broad subject," said Al Hendra, UP Healthcare Roundtable Chairperson.
Susan Makela was one of the keynote speakers. She spoke on the latest advances in telehealth, a growing service in the U.P. Telehealth offers personal doctor-patient interaction over a long distance, which is most beneficial during bad weather or for those with physical disabilities.
"It doesn't matter where they live in the Upper Peninsula, they can come to Marquette General Hospital, have services done, go back to their local community, and have their follow-up appointments or their pre-appointments done over video conferencing technologies in their hometown," said Makela, Director of Education Services in the U.P. to the Healthcare Network at MGH.
Outside of learning the latest in healthcare technology, one of the main benefits of the conference is networking. There are medical experts here from all over the U.P. About 50 medical professionals from elderly care to hospital management attended this year, but they all arrived with the same goal: to learn how they can use medicine's newest technologies to better serve their patients in Upper Michigan.
"What I get is the satisfaction of knowing that we're providing a service to our clients in the Upper Peninsula by bringing the educational opportunities locally," Hendra said.
2012 marks the biggest U.P. Roundtable Healthcare Conference yet.
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