Registration

General Session
The Future of Healthcare: Executive Leadership Roundtable
• Ron Howrigon
Healthcare is facing unprecedented pressure from rising operating costs, workforce shortages, reimbursement challenges, regulatory complexity, and continued market consolidation. In this executive-level follow-up session, Ron Howrigon, President and CEO of Fulcrum Strategies, will move beyond industry trends to facilitate a candid discussion about the economic realities reshaping healthcare and what they mean for the future healthcare practices. Leveraging more than 40 years of experience as a healthcare economist, managed care executive, and physician consultant, Ron will provide strategic insights into the forces driving change and the critical decisions healthcare leaders must make to remain competitive, financially strong, and strategically positioned for growth.

Designed exclusively for senior healthcare executives, this interactive roundtable focuses on the issues keeping practice leaders awake at night. Participants will gain executive-level perspectives, benchmark strategies with peers facing similar challenges, and leave with insights to strengthen organizational resilience, improve financial performance, and build a roadmap for long-term success in a rapidly evolving healthcare environment.

General Session
Executive Exchange: What's Working Now in Medical Practice Leadership
• Speakers TBD
Practice leaders are being challenged to think differently, move faster, and lead with greater resilience. This member-led executive exchange will bring together Carolinas MGMA leaders for an elevated, peer-to-peer conversation focused on the real-world strategies helping medical practices adapt, grow, and thrive.

Members will share what is working inside their organizations, where they are seeing the greatest pressure, and how they are approaching challenges such as staffing, financial sustainability, operational efficiency, technology integration and more.

General Session
What the World's Happiest and Healthiest Countries Can Teach Healthcare Leaders
• Sarah Clark, MS, ATC
Join Sarah Clark, of Sarah Clark Consulting as she share insights and lessons learned from an immersive executive study tour through Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Through meetings with Healthcare Denmark, the Happiness Museum, the University of Rotterdam's Martijn Burger, and leaders from the Dutch Association for Voluntary End of Life (NVVE), participants explored how healthcare systems, workplace culture, leadership philosophies, and societal well-being intersect to create thriving communities.

This engaging session will examine the innovative approaches these countries use to support patient care, workforce well-being, healthcare access, and quality of life. Attendees will gain fresh perspectives on leadership, organizational culture, employee engagement, and healthcare delivery while exploring practical ideas that can be adapted within medical practices and healthcare organizations across the Carolinas.

Leave inspired to think differently about what it means to build not only successful organizations, but healthier teams, stronger communities, and more sustainable healthcare systems.

Reception

Breakfast

General Session
Scaling Leadership: The Cost of Staying Stuck
• Tina Ruark-Baker
Organizations don't outgrow their strategy - they outgrow their leadership. As responsibilities grow, executives often get trapped in the day-to-day operations that once made them successful, capping both their effectiveness and their organization's growth. This keynote explores how leaders unintentionally become the bottleneck, why teams stop taking ownership, and how to build a culture where accountability, trust, and leadership thrive at every level.

General Session
Three-part AI in Healthcare Deep Dive
• Bill Lopez, New Charter Technologies
• Reda Chouffani, New Charter Technologies
• Eric Monda, Cyber74

The State of AI in Ambulatory Healthcare
• Bill Lopez, New Charter Technologies
AI adoption inside organizations is moving faster than most security programs can keep up with. Employees are already using AI tools, sanctioned or not, to write code, summarize sensitive documents, and connect to internal systems, often without anyone in IT or security ever seeing it happen. In this session, we'll reframe how leaders should think about AI: not as a piece of software to configure once, but as a new kind of "employee" that needs onboarding, training, boundaries, and oversight just like anyone else on staff. We'll walk through where the real exposure lives today, including shadow AI usage, data disclosure through everyday AI tools, risks introduced by AI-assisted coding, and the growing use of autonomous agents and MCP-style integrations. Attendees will leave with a practical framework for what to prioritize and a set of pointed questions every leadership team should be asking about their own AI footprint.

From Hype to the Bedside: What AI Can Actually Do for Your Health System
• Reda Chouffani, New Charter Technologies
AI dominates every healthcare conversation — but which capabilities are real, and which are marketing? In this session, healthcare technology strategist Reda Chouffani cuts through the noise on the two breakthroughs reshaping operations in 2026: agentic AI and ambient intelligence. Rather than slides alone, attendees will see a working proof of concept in action — autonomous agents that prevent claim denials, recover at-risk appointments, and run daily operations, all with staff approval built into every step. You'll leave with a practical framework for separating hype from reality, the governance questions your board will ask, and a concrete 12-month action plan for putting AI to work in your organization.

The Unmanaged Employee: Rethinking AI Security
• Eric Monda, Cyber74
AI adoption inside organizations is moving faster than most security programs can keep up with. Employees are already using AI tools, sanctioned or not, to write code, summarize sensitive documents, and connect to internal systems, often without anyone in IT or security ever seeing it happen. In this session, we'll reframe how leaders should think about AI: not as a piece of software to configure once, but as a new kind of "employee" that needs onboarding, training, boundaries, and oversight just like anyone else on staff. We'll walk through where the real exposure lives today, including shadow AI usage, data disclosure through everyday AI tools, risks introduced by AI-assisted coding, and the growing use of autonomous agents and MCP-style integrations. Attendees will leave with a practical framework for what to prioritize and a set of pointed questions every leadership team should be asking about their own AI footprint.

General Session
When the Unexpected Happens: Unscripted Responses
• Matt Johnson, Wake Internal Medicine Consultants
• Coutney Bain, Digestive Health Specialists (Moderator)
Medical practice executives face unprecedented challenges when crises strike—from cybersecurity breaches and natural disasters to challenging physician behaviors and emergencies that can disrupt operations within moments. This interactive session will explore real-world strategies for maintaining organizational stability and clear decision-making during high-stakes situations where there's no playbook to follow. Panelists will share practical frameworks for rapid response coordination, transparent stakeholder communication, and maintaining patient care continuity when normal protocols no longer apply. Attendees will leave with actionable tools for leading through uncertainty and transforming chaotic moments into opportunities for organizational resilience.