Heartland Collaborative Holds Annual Conference

Shona Whitehead

The Heartland Genetics and Newborn Screening Collaborative held its annual meeting September 11-12 at the Holiday Inn City Centre in Sioux Falls, SD. Sixteen states  were represented among the 80+ people in attendance. 

During the plenary sessions a variety of topics were discussed including: Heartland newborn screening back-up testing, transitioning from the pediatric to adult medical home, integrated data systems in Missouri and South Dakota and the addition of Pompe disease to the core panel. Heartland’s Work Groups met to work on on-going projects and plan for the upcoming year.

A new addition to this year’s conference was a working lunch with facilitated roundtable discussions. Attendees could participate in three, 30-minute roundtable discussions on topics such as: Family Health History, TeleGenetics, Teratogen information services and Newborn Hearing Screening.  Evaluation results show that participants felt the sessions were beneficial and would like roundtable discussions again next year.

Wednesday evening, before the conference began, the Heartland Advisory Board met in person to discuss revisions to the Heartland Strategic Plan, preparations for the HRSA Office of Performance Review site visit to the Regional Coordinating Center in October and review the advocate project review protocol among other agenda items. In addition to the 13 Advisory Board members and 2 Heartland Staff, there were 10 additional attendees at this open meeting.

On Thursday evening, Sanford Health sponsored a dinner for all conference attendees at the Washington Pavilion, a renovated high school building, turned museum and concert hall in historic downtown Sioux Falls. Conference attendees enjoyed a delicious dinner and the opportunity to socialize with their colleagues.

During breaks and the poster session, conference attendees could also visit vendor booths. The conference vendors were: Bio-Marin Pharmaceuticals, Combimatrix Molecular Diagnostics, Oz Systems International, PerkinElmer, Sanford Health, South Dakota Parent Connection, Third Wave Technologies and Vitaflo USA. Heartland sincerely appreciates the vendors support!

For more information and to download presentations from this year’s conference, please visit www.heartlandcollaborative.org.

Mark your calendars for September 17-18, in Little Rock, AR.