^{Conference links clinical and business strategies}

In an effort to help health care leaders balance cost cutting and quality issues, the San Francisco-based Healthcare Forum is holding a conference called Clinical Innovation as a Business Strategy. Sessions, such as Big Business Gets Serious about Measuring Effectiveness; Demand Management: Improving the Appropriateness of Medical Care; and Value and The Challenge of Population Health Improvement in a Cost Competitive Environment, underscore today’s confusion over how quality improvement and cost cutting can go hand in hand.

Speakers will include David Lansky, PhD, president, Foundation for Accountability; Lawrence Gottlieb, MD, deputy medical director, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care; and Hugh Straley, MD, associate medical director, Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound. The conference will be held Feb. 18-21 at the Loews Coronado Bay Resort in San Diego. For more information, contact The Healthcare Forum at (415) 356-4400.