9th Annual Spark Summit Highlights

Ultimate Medical Academy (UMA) held its ninth annual Spark Summit from May 1 to May 3, 2024. The theme of the event was “Shaping Tomorrow’s Care: Powering the Patient Experience.” More than 100 healthcare leaders and human resources professionals attended, holding discussions and sharing input about ways to enhance the patient's experience.

This is an important topic since patients with a positive experience typically have improved health outcomes, while businesses benefit with a lower medical malpractice risk, increased employee satisfaction, and reduced turnover rates.¹ If you weren’t able to attend this year’s healthcare summit, here are a few of its highlights.

Keynote Speaker Shantel Love Talks About Healthcare Leadership

Shantel Love is the Global Vice President of Customer Service at Pearson and a top LinkedIn mentoring voice, personal branding strategist, and leadership coach — making her the perfect speaker to kick off our event. Love combines her extensive corporate experience with a passion for developing people. She inspires and transforms audiences' and teams’ mindsets, creating meaningful change within organizations.

Love’s work centers around humanized leadership, performance coaching, and building highly engaged teams and cultures. She consistently delivers impactful results using an approach that helps organizations not only strengthen their engagement and leadership methods but also foster the skills leaders need to support and develop their teams. From her experience, this results in higher retention, more engaged cultures, and outstanding business outcomes.

Guest Speaker Kat Ketter Discusses Care for Underserved Populations

Kat Ketter was another esteemed speaker at the 2024 Summit, where she spoke about “Transformative Care in Underserved Populations: Strategies for Achieving Health Equity and Creating a Ripple Effect of Care.” Ketter is AVP of Member Experience at Jefferson Health Plans and is passionate about people, dedicating her career to creating a better life for all patients.

For the past 20 years, Ketter has led business and healthcare organizations in the voice of customer programs and customer experience strategies. Her experience spans the design, development, and delivery of customer relationship systems and processes. But at her core, it all comes back to people, which is why Ketter focuses on creating a high-touch, value-driven experience for all persons from coast to coast.

UMA’s Jaysa Boyer Talks About Employer Partner Excellence

Another highlight of the ninth annual Spark Summit was Jaysa Boyer, Head of Employer Engagement at UMA. Boyer led the session titled “Employer Partner Excellence: Panel Insights and Interactive Workshop on Best Practices.” Panel members included:

• Lisa Hanlon, SVP, People & Strategic Initiatives, Continuum Global Solutions
• Richard Jordan, Sr. Director, Talent Acquisition, Teleperformance
• Jimetha Shoemo, Director, Talent Acquisition, TTEC
• Tabitha Turner, Director, Managed Accounts, MMC Group

This group includes some of UMA’s top employer partners, who shared insights on market trends and how their partnerships with UMA have positively impacted their hiring processes. They also provided real-world best practices from their organizations that are enhancing the candidate’s experience.

After the panel, the discussion was opened to the full audience. In small groups, attendees did a deeper dive into topics like talent attraction, onboarding, training, and employee engagement. Their conversations were robust, providing evidence that the thought leaders in attendance were truly focused on improving the lives of their employees.

No matter what role each person plays in their organization — from vice president or director to recruiting manager or department head, and other titles in between —it was clear we could all learn something from each other. This workshop greatly reinforced one of the goals of the UMA Spark Summit, which is to grow partnerships, and reiterated that together we can transform the future of healthcare.

Igniting the Spark to Face Common Healthcare Challenges Today

UMA holds annual Spark Summits to zero in on some of the biggest challenges in healthcare today. Experts are brought in to share insights and provide actionable advice for solving the issues that many organizations face.

During the summits, UMA reinforces that it is here to play an active role in finding effective workforce solutions, working hand in hand with employer partners to learn more about their workforce challenges and what can be done to help resolve them.

If you couldn’t attend the 2024 Spark Summit and wish to learn more about what was discussed, contact UMA and you can also share the topics you’d like to cover at future summits. These events are designed to elevate the healthcare industry and forge long-lasting partnerships in that effort!