The North Bay Business Journal‘s annual Healthcare Conference was held today and the impact of the Affordable Care Act was discussed by a panel of North Bay healthcare leaders and another panel of insurance brokers.

As one of the attendees from TLCD Architecture‘s healthcare studio, I was left with two distinct impressions about the current healthcare landscape that are surprisingly quite different from national news reports: optimism and honesty.

Optimism: Both panels concurred that the current “pay for service” healthcare model is outdated, broken and unsustainable. The panels also agreed that the Affordable Care Act that transforms our healthcare system to focus on healthy outcomes through quality healthcare instead of quantity healthcare is the right approach.

Honesty: The panelists also agreed that the Affordable Care Act is not perfect nor is it a complete disaster. It is an opportunity to reshape our healthcare system that will take time and evolution to achieve a system that serves our communities to improve our health and happiness.

The coming months will be full of turbulence and growing pains, but only time will tell if the opportunity presented by the Affordable Care Act will be pursued with optimism and honesty.