"Competitiveness in the Health Care Industry," a conference addressing a range of business-related issues impacting on the industry, will be held in the Alumni House lounge, 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18.

School of Business Administration alumni, students and friends are invited. Admission, which includes a continental breakfast, is free.

A panel of health care executives will discuss quality improvement, cost containment, consumer awareness and flexible responsiveness to competition, among other issues. Panelists will invite questions from the audience following their presentations.

Panelists include Dennis Herrick, vice president of finance and CFO of William Beaumont Hospital; Jonathan Kaplan, partner and Great Lakes area co-director of health care performance improvement consulting services for Ernst and Young; R. Michael Massanari, director of the Center for Health Care Effectiveness Research here; Joseph T. Scallen, Jr., vice president of finance for the Detroit Medical Center's Regional Financial Services; and Ron Wood, director of Michigan underwriting for Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan.

The event is sponsored by the School of Business Administration. For more information and reservations call Timothy Butler in the finance and business economics department at 577-4520.