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: HCA Chairman & CEO Jack O. Bovender, Jr. presents a Nashville Health Care Council gold record to former U.S. Ambassador to Germany John Kornblum. (L-R): Healthways Chairman Thomas G. Cigarran, Kornblum, Bovender and Council President Caroline Young.

Senior level healthcare executives headed across the Atlantic for a six-day international trade mission to Stockholm and Berlin. The mid-September trip was the seventh trade mission sponsored by the Nashville Heath Care Council and Nashville Chamber of Commerce to build relationships between area companies and overseas counterparts.

Mixed in with briefings, panel discussions and embassy receptions were presentations with high-ranking officials in both Sweden and Germany, as well as other prominent European healthcare officials.

A record number of 35 local leaders participated in the mission, representing Nashville’s diverse healthcare community including hospital management, disease management, information technology, academia, government and professional support services such as law, architecture and finance.

Jack O. Bovender, Jr., chairman and CEO of HCA and mission leader, commented, “Our briefings in Stockholm and Berlin offered mission delegates the unique opportunity to meet with senior government and industry officials to share potential solutions to common healthcare challenges and to broadly showcase Nashville’s deep healthcare expertise on a global level.”

In Stockholm, Nashville delegates met with Swedish Health Minister Goran Hagglund, U. S. Ambassador Michael Wood, plus Swedish Health Ministry officials and members of the U. S. Embassy team.

The keynote speaker on the first evening in Stockholm was Lars Gatenbeck, MD, PhD, chairman of the board of Swecare and the founding partner and chairman of the GZ Group.

In Berlin, Franz Knieps, German Health Ministry Director General, and U. S. Ambassador to Germany William Timken, Jr., along with officials from the German Health Ministry joined the team for informal briefings.

The keynote speaker at the farewell event was former U. S. Ambassador to Germany, John Kornblum.

In both countries, panel discussions on financing trends in the European Union featured influential private equity and banking executives, as well as policymakers, public insurance officials and leading private sector providers who offered insight into healthcare concerns and opportunities abroad.

Tom Cigarran, chairman of Healthways and the NHCC board, said, “The visit to Sweden and Germany further underscores the unique role that Nashville plays as an entrepreneurial center for solutions and services that improve the delivery of healthcare not only in our nation but also on a global basis.”

Caroline Young, NHCC president, commented, “It is a true honor to have such a distinguished group of Nashville healthcare executive join us in Sweden and Germany on the seventh healthcare trade mission hosted by the Council and Chamber. We had exceptional dialogues with thought leaders and policymakers in both countries, and we further established Nashville’s long-standing and well-deserved reputation as a premier healthcare service community.”

The Council will partner with the Nashville Technology Council and the Chamber to host a mission to India in late February. HCA’s Bovender will once again serve as mission leader for the upcoming trip.

Previous healthcare trade missions –– Germany and the UK, France and Spain, Belgium and Italy, the UK and The Netherlands, Hungary and the Czech Republic, and Poland and Austria –– have generated significant business opportunities and valuable contacts and market research for participants.

The Health Care Council, founded in 1995 as an initiative of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, is an association of healthcare industry leaders working together to continue Nashville’s position as the nation’s healthcare industry capital.

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