OCTOBER 2005
Major theme: Healthcare Information Technologies

Molly Coye

The implementation of healthcare information technologies (HIT) in California is both a huge problem and an opportunity for closing inequities in healthcare costs, according to newly appointed CCST Fellow Molly Coye.

"The development of integrated digital patient records could have a significant impact on the quality and safety of healthcare in California," said Coye, founder and CEO of the Health Technology Center (HealthTech), a non-profit education and research organization established in 2000 to advance the use of beneficial technologies in promoting healthier people and communities. "At HealthTech we have been working to provide objective technology forecasts, innovative decision-making tools, and expert learning networks for medical institutions and organizations around the country. However, there is a direct role that state government needs to play in order to foster truly effective integration of HIT."

The government needs to create incentives, standards, and related enabling legislation to help HIT develop in a way that will systematically improve quality and efficiency throughout the state, according to Coye. The state's role could include accelerating market forces through incentives to adopt and use standards, and subsidizing change by targeting the developing of regional health information exchange networks and decreasing the risk of HIT adoption.

The meeting was jointly held with the Institute of Medicine.

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JANUARY 2006
Major theme: Emergency Response

Raymond Seed

The dramatic levee failures that led to the inundation of New Orleans are the greatest disaster to hit an American city, but a similar situation could happened in California with even larger consequences, according to Raymond Seed, the keynote speaker at the January meeting.

Seed, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, warned that the levees protecting the Sacramento Delta have an even greater chance of failure than the New Orleans levees did. In his presentation, Performance of the New Orleans Flood Defenses in Hurricane Katrina and a Look at the State of California's Levee-Related Exposure, he noted that while Sacramento would be easier to evacuate than New Orleans in case of flooding, California faces additional challenges.

"We have the additional risks of earthquakes," said Seed, "and the sand-based levees used throughout much of the Sacramento Delta perform much worse against seismic disturbances." Another serious issue is the fact that over two thirds of California's water supply is channeled across the Delta; if the region were to flood, the water delivery system could be knocked out for up to two years.

"In general, people don't want to deal with long-term, expensive planning," said Seed. "But there are solutions California could pursue."

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MAY 2006
Major theme: California's Energy Future

Harold Ray

Keynote speaker Harold Ray, Consultant and Retired Executive Vice President, Southern California Edison, and former President of the American Nuclear Society, told Council members that California needs to begin in-depth discussions of its energy figure if it is to create a balanced energy portfolio that meets environmental standards.

In his talk, Challenges and Opportunities in Emissions-free Electricity Generating Resources, Ray noted that nuclear power must increasingly be considered a central source of energy for sustainable development if global energy demand continues to grow exponentially.

"Fossil fuel dependency is not a long-term option," said Ray. "The challenges posed by global climate change, together with the availability and price of oil and gas, have raised serious concerns about energy independence, sustainability, competitiveness, and security."

A new national initiative is being considered, referred to as the Global Nuclear Future Initiative, which is designed to position the United States to have international influence over the expanding global use of nuclear energy. This is a state as well as a national issue because state legislation on spent nuclear fuel waste disposal currently precludes any new construction of nuclear power plants.

"Nuclear power will be a major tool for greenhouse gas abatement," said Ray.