By John Kelly, CEO, Bluegrass Business Media
Forget the lawyer jokes and the bank bailout controversies. Apparently, Americans are more fed up with the healthcare industry than either of these oft-scorned industry sectors.

Results of a Gallup poll conducted just this month show that positive views of the healthcare industry have plummeted by 10 percentage points since a similar poll was taken in 2001. Only 27% of the more than 1,000 adults interviewed indicated that they had a positive perception about the healthcare sector. That’s lower than the legal, banking, and airline industries. The pharmaceutical industry fared slightly better, garnering a 37% positive rating, but still posting a drop of 6 percentage points since the poll a decade earlier.

When I saw the results of this research, I had to ask myself how, as an industry, the healthcare sector could rate so negatively with the public when the ability to provide care and comfort is at the industry’s very core?

Discussions about Healthcare Reform have drawn a lot of attention to quality of care issues and positive patient experience. Yet, if the Gallup poll is any evidence, the healthcare industry may find it has greater challenges stemming from public perception than anticipated. With high-quality patient care bringing greater financial reward in the new era of healthcare, the need to build better relationships between systems and patients seem an integral part of nurturing stronger partnerships between financial and clinical interests.

One of the roles the IDN Summit is able to serve for leaders in the healthcare industry is to provide them with a strong foundation for professional development and growth, coupled with the latest information and expertise available to the industry. The IDN Summit places an emphasis on providing you with strategies that don’t just sound good, but that have true applicability to your own organization. It’s the type of educational and professional development opportunity that can help you and your organization reverse trends like the one I’ve just shared. Technology and medical breakthroughs are not the only focus for today’s healthcare sector. An emphasis on development of the human factor and the building of relationships that strengthen both patient outcome and bottom lines is also necessary to drive the industry toward a solid future.

I invite you to take part in the 2011 Fall IDN Summit coming up Sept. 13-15 at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix and see for yourself how important professional development can be for you and your organization. More information is available here.