OPENING GENERAL SESSION: Dopesick

Friday, November 4, 2021 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM CST
Speaker: Beth Macy, Best-Selling Author & Journalist

Beth Macy is the author of the critically acclaimed and New York Times-bestselling books, Factory Man, Truevine, and Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America (2018). Macy serves as an Executive Producer and writer on the acclaimed Hulu limited television series Dopesick, which is based on her book.

Growing out of three decades of reporting from the same Virginia communities, as her prior books did, Dopesick unpacks the most intractable social problems of our time: the opioid crisis, set against a landscape of job loss, corporate greed and stigma, along with the families and first responders who are heroically fighting back. Overdose deaths are now the equivalent of a jetliner crashing in our country every day, and yet the government response to the epidemic remains, in a word, impotent.

Dopesick is, in many ways, the sequel to Macy's first book, FACTORY MAN. It lays out exactly how the jobless “other America” ended up couch-surfing with the likes of surgeon’s daughters and civic leaders’ kids who fall prey to prostitution, jail, and even death. Tom Hanks describes Dopesick as “a deep — and deeply needed — look into the troubled soul of America.” Stanford addiction medicine specialist and author Dr. Anna Lembke calls it the first book to capture the entirety of the epidemic, “with a fast-paced narrative, colorful and inspiring characters, vivid historical detail, and a profound sense of place.”

A longtime reporter who specializes in outsiders and underdogs, Macy has won more than a dozen national journalism awards, including a Lukas Prize for Factory Man, multiple shortlist and best-book-of-the-year honors for Truevine, and a Nieman Fellowship for Journalism at Harvard for her newspaper writing.

A frequent speaker, teacher and essayist, Macy has been published in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Oprah magazine, and Parade. Her approach to storytelling: Report from the ground up, establish trust, be patient, find stories that tap into universal truths. Get out of your ZIP code. To do good journalism, be a human first.

Her book, Raising Lazarus, Hope, Justice, and the Future of America's Drug Crisis (August 2022), focuses on solutions to the opioid crisis and the heroic efforts of frontline workers who are applying harm reduction practices on the streets of America. It also will document the efforts of activists and parents of the dead who are trying to hold the Sackler family accountable for the crisis they helped create.

SECOND GENERAL SESSION: Broken- Fighting for Change

Saturday, November 5 at 8:15 AM - 9:30 AM CST
Speaker: Dr. Buffy Lloyd-Krejci, DrPH, MS, CIC, Author

Dr. Buffy Lloyd-Krejci, also known as "Dr. Buffy: The Germ Slayer" : is one of the foremostauthorities on infection prevention and control in nursing homes and long-term carefacilities such as nursing homes and other underserved and vulnerable populations such asNative American Tribal communities. She is a frequent contributor and interview source fornational and trade press concerning infection prevention and control and mitigation. She isthe author of “Broken: How the Global Pandemic uncovered a nursing home industry in needof repair and heroic staff fighting for change,” set to be released in the summer of 2022. Herpractice, IPCWell is headquartered in the Phoenix metropolitan area and is devoted tomitigating infectious diseases and inappropriate antibiotic prescribing in all healthcaresettings to reduce adverse events, infections, antibiotic resistance, re-admissions, anddeath. Dr. Buffy consults with health care facilities across the United States andinternationally (Doctors Without Borders).

With more than 20 years of healthcare & public health experience, Dr. Lloyd-Krejci’s data-driven approach is hands-on and collaborative. Using her experience with more than 700healthcare facilities across the United States she works tirelessly to combat the estimatedone to 3 million infections leading to more than 380,000 deaths every year in the nursinghome industry. She has worked with the CDC and other organizations on infection controlstudies and research such as the Arizona Emergency Preparedness Infection Control (EPIC)grant, the Institute of Health (IHI) Project ECHO, a hub-and-spoke knowledge-sharingnetwork to support NH leadership during COVID-19.

As a result of her work with more than 200 nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemicand over 500 prior to 2020, Dr. Lloyd-Krejci wrote a book entitled: Broken: “How theGlobal Pandemic uncovered a nursing home industry in need of repair and heroic stafffighting for change,” set to be released in the summer of 2022. The book describeschallenges within the nursing home industry with infection prevention and control prior tothe pandemic, the catastrophic consequences of COVID-19, and what actions are neededto improve the quality of care delivered to this vulnerable population now and into thefuture. And how to use this dark season to transform the long-term care industry into asupportive healthcare system that provides safer, more reliable care for our loved ones.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Lloyd-Krejci has taken a “boots on the ground”approach to support healthcare facilities such as nursing homes across the nation, doing in-person, deep-dive assessments to offer immediate support to healthcare workers on thefrontlines. She has traveled around the country to long-term care facilities to assess, train,and educate with humor, vigor, and empathy. She has developed practical tools, led trainingand “train the trainer” programs, provided ongoing support to IPC teams, and created the“LTC playbook” for Doctors Without Borders infection control support for early use in hard-hit areas of Detroit and Houston. When Dr. Lloyd-Krejci is not on-site, she offers herexpertise to other U.S. and international programs, developing content for IPC curriculum,conducting virtual clinics on infection control EPIC and Emergency Preparedness InfectionControl disaster programs, providing infection prevention and control support to theHavasupai Native American tribe, and supporting the CDC/White House Vaccinate AmericaForum.

Dr. Lloyd-Krejci has also worked as a Quality Improvement Advisor on Healthcare AcquiredInfections with Health Services Advisory Group, conducted research as a Research Assistantwith the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, and has served as Hospital Unit Coordinator for ArrowheadHospital, Straub Clinic & Hospital, and Banner Good Samaritan Hospital. She holds a Doctorof Public Health with a specialization in Epidemiology from Capella University, an M.S., inBiomedical Informatics from Arizona State University, a B.S in Applied Mathematics fromArizona State University, is Board Certified in Infection Prevention and Control (CIC), andstudied French abroad at Universite’ de Lyon, France.