Together with the Center for Women Veterans and the VA Secretary's office, the VA Women Veterans Health group helped conceptualize and tirelessly supported an inaugural Forum on Women Veterans, July 27-28 at the Women's Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. The event — highlighting enhancements in VA services to women veterans — drew nearly 200 veterans and veteran services organizations. Akoya took the lead on logistics, design, and more — from overall branding to PR materials, outreach, and presentations, to the down-to-the-minute agenda timing. Was the client pleased? "Akoya has done an impressive job," said Dr. Patty Hayes, Chief Consultant for Women Veterans Health. "I believe the success of the 2010 Forum on Women Veterans is due almost entirely to the expertise, dedication and extensive effort contributed by Akoya staff." Read the Washington Post's next-day coverage of the event for more on what VA is doing to improve access and enhance services for women veterans.
An Akoya team visited six VA medical facilities across the United States during production of a high-definition national outreach video regarding health care for women veterans. This video is documenting the far-reaching changes being made across the VA system to meet the comprehensive health care needs of an ever-increasing population of women veterans.
In the “time flies when you’re having fun” department, Akoya celebrated its tenth anniversary on May 5 with a three-day strategic planning workshop and staff retreat at the Omni Bedford Springs Resort in Bedford, PA.
Last week in Las Vegas, the Veterans Health Administration convened what's been touted as the largest VHA conference ever, focusing on the patient centered medical home (PCMH) concept — a model of care delivery that puts the patient at the center of their health care, is responsive to patients’ needs and concerns, takes a team-based approach to health care delivery, and strives for continuous improvement. Akoya supported the VA Women Veterans Health Strategic Health Care Group (WVHSHG) in its role in the conference — structuring breakout sessions, furnishing giveaways, fixing last-minute plenary slides. We also helped WVHSHG hammer home a key point: Women Veterans Health Care IS patient-centered care, and while there's room for progress, Women Veterans Health Care serves as an excellent model for PCMH.
More than 350 researchers, manufacturers, and other industry insiders gathered in Raleigh, NC for the Department of Energy's seventh annual Solid-State Lighting R&D Workshop in February. For this national forum on SSL technology advances, Akoya provided turnkey planning—coordinating all stages of the event—as well as a comprehensive communications package that included a new video to accompany DOE Lighting Program Manager James Brodrick's opening presentation.
Every month, Akoya helps the National Building Museum stage the lunchtime lecture series, Building in the 21st Century. These lectures, sponsored in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, provide a forum for experts from across the nation to share innovative ideas related to energy efficiency in commercial and residential architecture. The speaker in March, Richard King of the DOE Building Technologies Program, provided a recap of the 2009 Solar Decathlon student design competition, which drew record crowds to the National Mall in Washington, D.C.