Media Alert: Panel with Topic `Consumer Power in Healthcare - Myth or Reality'

NEW YORK, Oct. 11 /PRNewswire/ --

What: Planetree Annual Conference - Panel on Healthcare
Consumerism

Topic: "Consumer Power in Healthcare - Myth or Reality" Are consumers
voting with their feet to select hospitals, doctors and other
providers that meet their expectations for service and quality
of care?

When: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 - 12:00 noon - 1:30 p.m.

Where: Marriott New York at the Brooklyn Bridge, New York City

Panelists:
Charles Inlander, President, People's Medical Society
Robert Valletta, PricewaterhouseCoopers Healthcare Practice
Kaveh Safavi M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Solucient, LLC

Media Respondents:
Jane Brody, New York Times Columnist and Author
Susan Dentzer, Health Correspondent, News Hour w/Jim Lehrer
Trudy Lieberman, Director, Center for Consumer Health
Choices, Consumer Reports
Diana Mason, Editor, American Journal of Nursing

Moderator:
Rick Wade, Senior Vice President for Strategic
Communications, American Hospital Association

Facts: There are 95 Planetree hospitals in the United States and one
in the Netherlands committed to empowering patients through
information and education and providing personalized,
humanistic, patient-centered care in healing environments.
Conference attendance will include 500 care-givers from
Planetree hospitals.

The Planetree Conference opens at 6:45 p.m. Monday, October 11th with a
keynote by Dr. Mehmet Oz, founder of the Complementary Care Center at New
York's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Keynotes on Tuesday, October 12th are
by Dr. Lisa Lezzoni, author of "When Walking Fails (A Patient's Story)" and
Dr. Leo Frangipane, author of "Remind Me Again, Why Did I Take This Job?"
Keynoters on Wednesday, October 13th are by Jackie Freiberg, PhD, author of
"Legendary Culture and Unconventional Ideas," The God Squad -- Rabbi Gellman
and Monsignor Hartman "Spiritual Dimensions in Health Care" and Dr. Oliver
Sachs, author of "Awakenings Revisited."