- Diversified Insurance Group was a title sponsor of the Summit 2009 Director & Officer Conference –

SALT LAKE CITY – December 11, 2009 –

“Requirements for today’s corporate directors and officers are evolving more quickly than ever before,” said David W. Steuber, partner in Howrey LLP, Los Angeles, Calif. Steuber joined a capacity group of more than 140 leading executives who participated in the 9th Annual Summit Conference for Directors and Officers (www.summitconf.org) at Stein Eriksen Lodge in Park City, Utah last week. SageCreek Partners, Ernst & Young and Diversified Insurance, along with several additional business support organizations, co-hosted the event.

“The Summit Conference is an event that is well worth attending,” Steuber continued.”It is a practical program for the director and officer who is serious about understanding cutting edge corporate governance issues and implementing measures designed to meet the ever-evolving legal, ethical, and social requirements imposed upon today’s businesses.”

Additional presenters at the event included Reatha Clark King, Ph.D, a member of the board of directors of Exxon Mobil, and Doyle Arnold, the Chief Financial Officer at Zions Bancorp. Working panels and topics included discussions of new SEC regulation, accounting changes and strategies for dealing with risk in organizations and industry. Keynotes included a discussion via satellite with U.S. Senator Bob Bennett. Additional presentations included keynotes by Bob Gay of Huntsman-Gay Capital and Lynn Blodgett, CEO of Affiliated Computer Systems, who spoke about company culture and the importance of being a good human while returning value to shareholders.

The Annual Summit Conference has featured senior management from the SEC, Nasdaq, PCAOB, CALSTERS and ISS, as well as leading industry executives and even a few controversial figures such as now-disbarred plaintiff’s class-action lawyer Bill Lerach. At the Summit, directors and officers of public or nearly public companies meet to receive updates on legal, financial, regulatory and business trends so that they can focus on their responsibilities in their professional roles.

Techassure has a really cool coverage calculator that can help a technology company evaluate and anticipate risks and appropriate coverage levels for their company.

Follow the link to check it out.

I read an interesting article last week about Twitter from Time Magazine. It is still a little hard for me to see the significance of Twitter and what it can do for a business, but this piece from Time magazine did a good job in showing how Twitter can be influential in some very interesting ways.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter, though I am only somewhat active. As Twitter (and I) evolves, I may become much more active. Time will tell.

I have recently had a very real, very personal experience regarding the value of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs). My mother suffered a stroke over a year ago but is largely recovered and living independently in the Southeast. While visiting a daughter in Texas she had an unexplained “episode” for which she would have visited her primary care physician. Because she was away from home and thus with no medical history that followed her, she chose not to visit the emergency room as the immediate symptoms had passed. Unfortunately, she had a repeat episode that was a bit more severe and was whisked away to the local emergency room outside of Dallas. She was subjected to a whole battery of tests, from simple bloodwork to a full MRI in an attempt to diagnose her symptoms. We are still awaiting the results. Had the doctors at the medical facility in Texas been in possession of her full medical history, they may have much more quickly (and possibly much more inexpensively) diagnosed her condition.

At the most basic level, EMRs are digital documentation of a doctor visit, including patient histories, exam notes, tests ordered, drugs prescribed, and any test results. Some systems check for drug interactions, access X-rays, or deliver a prompt when a patient has not had a flu shot. The preventive aspects alone can save millions of dollars and thousands of hospitalizations. The problem with our current situation is the incentive system at play. Doctors get paid for service, not wellness. EMRs require time and money to implement for which doctors are not compensated.

Privacy Concerns have dogged the adoption of Electronic Medical Records but EMRs allow for a number of very real advantages. People with significant or lengthy health / medical records often find it hard to shop for doctors. EMRs allow an easier transfer of information for people seeking specialists and can greatly reduce the number of expensive tests required for a person.

Doctors can debate, but it looks as if Electronic Medical Recprds are here for the longterm. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act states that every American should have an electronic medical record by 2014. The Obama administration is looking to speed the transition by providing financial incentives, up to $65,000 apiece to eligible physicians, starting in 2011.

Wired magazine has a good article about EMRs that further discusses additional ramifications and concerns.

For a somewhat opposing view on the problems with implementing EMRs, BusinessWeek has an interesting story.