The Economist’s Healthcare in Asia summit, held in Malaysia this past March.
GOAL: OBAMACARE VS. BRAND EXTENSION Economist/Cox In terms of takeaway, I think [we want attendees to leave with] an understanding and some sort of different views and angles on the Affordable Care Act. Clearly there is an enormous amount of legislation, an enormous amount of moving parts to the act, and what we hope is that the attendee comes away with a syn- thesized and clear understanding of how the act will impact them and their organizations and what they can do about it. And at the same time, [we want to] provide them with some insight into what the future may look like and what sort of strategies and actions they may want to implement going forward.
EVENT: FIRST TIME VS. FIFTH YEAR Economist/David Cox We run a number of health-care events around the world, but given all the changes going on in the health-care system [in the United States], and particularly around the Affordable Care Act, this is going to be our first event that we’re running here in the U.S. We are expecting some- where over 200 senior-level executives from a broad range of health-care organizations, be it hospitals, insur- ance companies — anybody really who is impacted by the new legislation.
Atlantic/Lyndsay Polloway We do about 10 D.C. policy summits across the year, on sort of topical/vertical [subjects], such as energy, education, technology, and then, in this case, health care. Our Health Care Forum this year was the fifth annual time we have hosted it. It’s really been successful for us, year over year. The program has grown in scale, in audience, in general support, and just kind of the impact it is making in the D.C. policy community and more broadly. This year, we had roughly 200 guests join us across the full day of
66 PCMA CONVENE OCTOBER 2013
programming. They come from across the board in the same way that the mag- azine itself appeals to a wide range of readers. So, in our audiences we’re not just gathering practitioners, we’re not just gathering academics. We’re gather- ing those two groups along with high- level media and industry leaders and advocacy folks and individuals from the consulting and legal profession.
DESTINATION: BOSTON VS. WASHINGTON, D.C. Economist/Cox We’re running it in Bos- ton mainly as a result of the fact that, in terms of innovative thinking, Massa- chusetts — and Boston in particular — is the hub of that sort of thought leader- ship around health care as a whole.
Atlantic/Suzanne Smalley The Atlantic is based in Washington, and much of what we cover — while not exclusively focused on policy in Washington — we are very interested in the major issues of the day. So it makes sense for us to host our biggest intelligence series forums, which are focused on major bread-and- butter policy issues, in the capital.
Atlantic/Polloway For us, we think about our team — AtlanticLIVE — as truly being an extension of the editorial brand. The editorial brand manifests itself in the print magazine certainly, on our digital properties, and then lastly in live conversation. So that is certainly our objective in any event that we’re producing.
Atlantic/Smalley We are an extension of The Atlantic editorial magazine and website, and so our editorial identity is very much around being ahead of the curve, very smart on the issues, telling people something they don’t know. So we try to do the same thing in our programs, bringing together fresh view- points, case studies.
CHALLENGES: NICHE VS. NEW Economist/Cox The challenge is that I think health care is, from an events perspective, a crowded space. Certainly in the U.S., there are many health-care events that take place every day. For us, the challenge here is finding our niche, and I think the particular niche that The Economist plays well in is this whole area between public policy and private sector. And that’s what we’ve
Previous Page