The three-day 7th Annual Bilateral Health Summit between health officials of American Samoa and Samoa opens tomorrow at the Gov. Rex Lee Auditorium with Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Economist Rob Grunewald, who will be the keynote speaker, talking about “Return on Investments”.

At least 30 delegates, including Associate Minister Salausa Dr. John Ah Ching and Director General of Health, Leausa Dr. Take Naseri, from Samoa will join their territorial colleagues for the summit, under the theme ‘Saving Money, Saving Time, Saving Lives’ and the goal is to “determine how we can minimize financial restraints, maximize valuable time, and ultimately save lives,” according to a draft of the submit program.

Among the objectives of the submit, which is rotated between the two Samoas:

•     is identify and discuss top most common disparities for Behavioral Health, an non-communicable disease (NCD) silent challenge and often ignored. (e.g.:  Substance Abuse, Suicide, and Domestic Violence)

•     identify effective NCD programs, projects, and/or systems that were developed under existing global, Pacific, and national frameworks - i.e. UN Political Declaration of the Prevention and Control of NCDs 2011, Apia Communique on Healthy Islands.

•     recognize effective communicable disease (CD) programs, projects, and/or systems that meet the expectations of the previous Bilateral Summits.

•     determine new interventions with multi-sectorial collaborations for NCDs and CDs that have not been discussed in other summits - e.g. implementing American Samoa-Satellite Pharmacies at Community Health Clinics and Veteran Affair’s Rural Health.

Outcome of the objects, is to among other things,

•     revolutionize healthcare by acknowledging methods or models to best practice “Saving money/costs, saving time and saving lives”;

•     develop an accessible electronic portal for participants the right of entry to good practices and successes (evidence-based) that would meet saving lives by budgeting time and money efficiently. Establish who would be responsible to archive information, maintain the site and update data.

•     determine further evolution of the Bilateral Annual Health Summit.

Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga is scheduled to deliver special remarks on day one, tomorrow, which starts at 7a.m. until 8a.m. with registration and breakfast, according to the summit draft program, which shows that Health Department Director Motusa Tuileama Nua will also offer remarks.

The summit is open to the public for all three days. On the last day, Friday, the activities include the bilateral summit assessment report and speeches from Leausa and LBJ Medical Center chief executive officer Taufete’e John Faumuina.

The outcomes agreed upon during last year’s summit hosted by Samoa, were to: identify national performance and lessons learnt from health development undertakings; improve planning and policy direction for the next 50 years; and grounding the developments of the annual Health Summit by continuing to place value in our collaborative development efforts in health.

The annual summit began in 2010 and these talks continued to be premised on the recognition that there are similarities unique to Samoa and American Samoa such as their shared history, ethnic and cultural values, ecology, natural resources and geographic proximity that presents opportunities.