By the time any reasonable person reads this, I will be giving or have given a talk at the local AAP VT Fall meeting here in Burlington. I am quite flattered that Dr. Aakre thought me capable of being sandwiched in among the likes of Drs. Barry Heath and Wendy Davis. My talk will be something along the lines of "Preparing for a Pediatric Electronic Health Record." I won't give away all the best lines, but the opening slide reads something like this:

The single biggest and most common mistake practices make when
choosing an EHR is to learn what they need after they purchase
the system.

The second most common mistake...

You'll have to ask me for the rest of that sentence.

Meanwhile, we are working with Dr. Lander and the helpful SOAPM admin folks (shout out to Heather to see if she's reading) to figure out where and what to do next after our kick-butt pediatric coding and practice management event in NYC in August. In addition to a practice management and clinical event our massive UC in late July, we're considering doing two more all-day events (with the same and additional speakers - how can we turn down Lander, Harbaugh, Tuck, and Bradley?!) and perhaps some 1/2 day events.

One of the first considerations in this process is where to do them. Using a cool map that I helped SOAPM put together to show the locations of all their members - Google is the coolest - we have a couple places in mind:

• Washington DC / Baltimore / Alexandria (somewhere in there)
• Cincinnati
• Detroit / Buffalo / Rochester
• San Francisco / Seattle
• Philadelphia

Here's what we're thinking:

The DC-metro area has a lot of pediatricians and, in particular, a lot of SOAPM folks. Plus, it's a family-friendly place. And maybe I'll stop by Volker's place and have the best beer in the world. We're looking there for an April meeting.

Cincinnati is smack in the middle of a lot of small hot spots and part of the country that the AAP and other educational resources often passes over. We have customers it would reach, too, which is always a bonus.

I don't know if Rochester will support a full-day meeting (~60-100 people), but we do have an amazing location and, though I haven't asked her yet, the support of Dr. Francis. I'm definitely interested in doing at least a 1/2 day there.

San Fran seems a little redundant, considering everyone was just out there, but we may get some local support and there are lots of pediatricians. Alternatively, we will shoot for Seattle, another corner of the world that doesn't get requisite AAP attention and has a good crowd. It would be a lot less expensive to simply stick to Philly, but we can't ignore the west coast.

Why do I ramble about this? Besides it being my nature, I'm looking for feedback and comments. You want the best Pediatric Road Show in your town? Let me know.