Bipartisan Initiatives

Yesterday was a day filled with convention sessions that brought together panels on a variety of issues talking about initiatives and strategies for change. I attended the American Solutions for Winning the Future Education Forum. It was a panel of unlikely bedfellows including Al Sharpton, Newt Gingrich, Minn. Gov. Tim Pawlenty and U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings at the forum, which was sponsored by American Solutions for Winning the Future, a non-partisan organization chaired by Newt Gingrich. Al Sharpton called on elected officials to put party differences aside to come up with a solution.

We viewed a portion of the movie "Two Million Minutes," which was a stunning contrast of high school students study habits, social habits, etc. from the United States, China, and India. You can see more information at http://www.2mminutes.com/ and learn more.

Themes at the education forum included performance driven systems designed around individuals and measurable student outcomes, a responsive dynamic system that is adequately supported including investing in teachers, customer driven encouraging parental and community engagement in the system and transparency of data to drive decisions in the system.

After the education forum I met up with Penny and Tim at the James J Hill House in St Paul for the Cerner Health Information Technology Policy Discussion, which focused on the Winona Minnesota health system that has used a bottom up approach to paperless documentation throughout their health system. It was a great discussion and we were pleased to hear the Winona project did include rehabilitation and behavioral health as well. You can find out more at http://www.winonahealth.org/ or http://www.cerner.com/. I would also encourage Minnesota vacationers to visit the James J Hill House. It has tours conducted by the MN Historical Society, and it is a beautiful home filled with history http://www.mnhs.org/places/sites/jjhh/.

Later we attended a dinner for Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) at the home of Layna and Ben Peltier. It was an intimate dinner with about 30 individuals attending. It provided us with the opportunity to talk with representatives of the ADA regarding legislation to allow dentists to refer to Occupational Therapy and also provided us with the chance to say thank you to Senator Grassley for his support of our initiatives on the Finance Committee. He did a Q & A after dinner and Tim was able to miss all the turtles at the turtle crossing so we all made it home safely! It was way out of the city.

We ended the evening at the Bipartisan "Two Parties, One Ticket" event at Bellanotte. Tim and I enjoyed networking with some of occupational therapy's policy "friends" from Washington and showing our support for reaching across party lines to move the country forward.

This morning Penny and I attended another Bipartisan event held by the ONE organization. ONE is a nonpartisan organization. ONE is a campaign against poverty. ONE believes that allocating more of the U.S. budget toward providing basic needs like health, education, clean water and food would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the world's poorest countries. We heard from representatives from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a Director General of Uganda AIDS Commission, a Washington Post and Newsweek columnist, and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Please visit http://www.one.org/ to find out more about this organization and their global health efforts.

The highlight of today has been Penny and I having our pictures taken behind the desk of the "oval office".........we looked truly presidential. We will be posting pictures soon so don't stay away from the blog for too long! We have credentials for the convention proceedings tonight, we hope to avoid another rock shower on our adventure into the Xcel Energy Center!