You – our audience, participants, and sponsors for the Healthcare Dealmakers Conference – represent a broad cross-section of the healthcare industry in the U.S.

Like us, you have been receiving messages about the scheduling impact of the pandemic on events and the broader U.S. economy. The pandemic is a tragic event. This message is different, and it is about much more than scheduling.

We believe this crisis is a time for leadership.

• We believe this is a time for innovation, especially in healthcare.
• We believe this is a time for national unity, and a time for all of us as Americans to pull together.
• We believe this is a time for Americans to remember our common values and work toward solutions, caring for those in need, helping to change the course of the pandemic, and working to ensure that future pandemics will be different. 
• We believe especially that this is a time of opportunity, and a time of shared humanity.

Each of you are leaders in your areas in the business of healthcare, and we will use the Healthcare Dealmakers Conference to help you press forward and lead in the crisis.

We are changing our approach to the Healthcare Dealmakers Conference this year, but we are not cancelling it. Together with our sponsors, we plan to carry out the event and empower healthcare leaders by keeping this group together throughout the year instead of only at the in-person event in May.

How are we doing this? 

• First, regarding COVID-19, Polsinelli as our leading sponsor has started a COVID-19: What Your Business Need to Know blog that is being updated hourly with current information. That blog can be found here. Polsinelli is also hosting regular webinars over the next few weeks. The series is already underway, and previously recorded sessions can be accessed via the website. 
• Second, we are launching The 10 Minute HealthBizCast, which is focused on “Exploring Ways To Make Healthcare Better.” This series of podcasts will feature interviews with leaders across the healthcare spectrum. It does not focus on COVID-19, but instead, focuses on the continuing and important questions of how we improve healthcare delivery in the U.S. over the long term – because there will be a day after the pandemic, and we all need to be ready for it.
• Third, on May 13-14, when the HDC was originally planned to be held in person in Dallas, we will present several of our HDC sessions via webinar. Stay tuned for additional details. 
• Fourth, we continue to present the HDC Quarterly Update, with the next webinar airing on April 8, 2020, at 12:00 PM CST, and will focus on Systematic Healthcare M+A. We believe the current crisis is likely to increase healthcare consolidation, even if there is an economic pause. We believe that by April it will be imperative that we begin preparing for what healthcare will look like in the “after.”

The Healthcare Dealmakers Conference is in its 13th year (lucky 13? We insist that it be), and our focus has been bringing together the innovators and the healthcare providers who will use those innovations. This year is an opportunity for that marriage to bear much fruit. We’re already seeing the barriers to innovation coming down from the urgency of the pandemic, and we see this as driving toward the future of healthcare that is continuously centered more on the patient – your efforts are needed and critical to our country’s future. 

Go forth and lead in healthcare, and do it fearlessly. What you do has a huge impact on those around you. The U.S. and the world need you. Thank you for joining us in these efforts. We look forward to talking to you soon, and hopefully, socializing with you at a proximity of less than 6 feet – which will happen soon if the efforts of all of us are successful.

Godspeed – 

Bobby Guy 
Chairman, Healthcare Dealmakers Conference

Jon Henderson
Chairman Emeritus and Founder, Healthcare Dealmakers Conference