ASHA Health Care & Business Institute

Greetings from Phoenix, Arizona! I’m attending ASHA’s Health Care & Business Institute, which is a three-day conference covering a variety of clinical and, as the name suggests, business topics. My last convention was in Chicago in 2013 for the large annual ASHA Convention.

I did things differently for this convention than I have for my past conventions:

1. I took the entire day off to allow for travel. I used to work most of the day and then travel, which always left me tired right out of the gate. Having the whole day off meant I could fly in sooner, and then had time to wander and explore the area a bit before going to check in for the conference.
2. Being here early also meant I was able to be present for the opening reception. It was lightly attended (I was also there early), but already I’ve had the chance to meet new people and have thoughtful and interesting conversations.
3. I packed much lighter. This was somewhat easier given both that it’s summer and that it’s Phoenix, but I was careful to pack only what I would need.
4. While I brought my laptop, I don’t plan on using it to take notes during sessions. I may tweet information from time to time from my phone, but having recently been reading and listening to stories about the big difference between writing notes vs typing them (namely that we tend to transcribe when typing rather than actually processing what we’re hearing in order to write meaningful notes), I decided to bring along a notebook and pen and see if I can tell a difference.

The biggest difference between the ASHA Convention and this one so far is both size and scope. It’s definitely a more intimate setting, and there are far fewer sessions from which to select. However, I appreciate the focus and the various learning “tracks” (there are five themes and one session per theme for each time slot) for helping me decide what I want to learn about. As I’ve been learning to navigate the worlds of home health and outpatient care, there are many things I’m eager to learn.

If you’re interested in following any tweets I might be writing, I’ll be writing them @ProjectSLP and using the hashtag #HCBI15. And if you were curious, I brought my camera along so I could enjoy my hobby while also in an exciting and educational frame of mind. Above are pictured some shots of the Phoenix Convention Center.