Tim J. Edwards

The HIMSS 2009 Annual Conference and Exhibition is over for another year. This year’s theme, “Architects of Change” proved to be a central focus for the majority of educational sessions I attended. With tight economic conditions facing many of us, the pressure to deliver quality and valuable content has never been higher and this year’s conference delivered.

In my post, HIMSS 2009 – What Do I Expect to See, I outlined two concepts I was hoping for; a maturing of HIT and a wealth of good ideas, success stories, and a peer group of committed HIT. Did HIMSS09 Deliver on my expectations? Yes, and then some.

To begin, the community aspect of this year’s HIMSS was unlike any prior year thanks to the addition of Social Media; especially Twitter. Thanks to HIMSS09, I wound-up adding over 40 people to my Twitter following (@timjedwards) and exchanged information with even more. Twitter added a dimension to the conference that was not available before, first-hand live reporting of sessions and events from multiple perspectives. Twitter not only helped connect people, it helped to document the events for everyone to share. I recommend reviewing #himss09 hash tag to see what I mean. Add to that my participation in the official “Meet the Bloggers” session and the growth of that peer group could not have gone better.

With the peer group can a wealth of good ideas, success stories, and metrics. The education sessions this year focused more on outcomes than ever before. In all three of my daily wrap ups (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday) I found sessions that focused on actual results and success stories from the integration of HIT. It was in these stories and examples the maturing of HIT I was after; the realization that outcomes needs to be the driving force in all IT implementation. HIT has to be used to improve patient outcomes and streamline operations, not for technologies sake.

I want to thank HIMSS for the integration and recognition of Social Medial in the enhancement of the conference activities and for providing quality conferences that justify both the time and expense of attending. I look forward to next year and hope the bar is raised again.

For more on the HIMSS09 conference, check out the following blogs:

• Chilmark Research
• eHealth Blog
• HealthBlog
• TBD Consulting
• Health Populi
• Nimbus Health

Scenes from HIMSS09

Like many of you, I had a grat time at the HIMSS 2009 annual conference in Chicago this week. While there, I managed to shot a bit of video unitl my camera ran out of battery. I was able to capture some of the events of HIMSS09 and some of the general excitement surrounding Chicago 2016 Olympic selection committee visit.

On question I heard often was, “What was the name of the group that performed at the opening keynote address?” His name is Skinny Williams (www.skinnywilliams.com) and he agreed to provide the soundtrack for this video.

Thanks to Skinny, HIMSS, and the City of Chicago for a great conference.

Tuesday was my third and final HIMSS09, I had to catch an evening flight back home to be at work tomorrow. Realistically, three full days of crowds, vendors, and education sessions is pushing my limits, but I digress. On to day 3.

Session: Connecting Rural Healthcare Providers to Academic & Tertiary Medical Centers

The session was conducted by Dan Furlong, Project Management Officer for Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) who was filling-in for their CIO, Dr. Frank C. Clark. “If any of you are hear hoping to meet Dr. Clark, I’m afraid you are going to be disappointed.”

Like everywhere, South Carolina has health problems and they have set out to lead an effort to” improve the health of rural residents by giving them access to the medical expertise found in the academic and tertiary medical centers located in urban areas.” The project will connect 65 rural hospitals and 13 rural clinics and provide access to this medical expertise. The project is funded by a in two ways, from an $8 million FCC grant and matching funding from the project’s governing body, the Health Science of South Carolina comprised of several institutions (MUSC, Spartanberg Regional Medical Center, Palmetto Health, and Greenville Hospital System). As of today, the backbone is in place and the contracts are signed, they are awaiting FCC funding to be released. In the words of Mr. Furlong, “We have found we move a whole lot faster tan the federal government.”

The most interesting aspect of this session was not just the content presented, but the way the audience joined into the conversation. It seems there were representatives from at least 7 other states that were working on their own connectivity projects and Dan invited and encouraged some great collaboration with the folks in the room. The education session turned into a working session and while I was not particularly interested in the details/tacit knowledge being exchanged, it was fascinating to watch.

Session: Who Should Really Be Flying the Project Management Plane?

The session was presented by Dan Furlong and Mark Daniels from MUSC. While Dan’s former presentation was interesting, this session was one I circled right away when I first looked at the HIMSS09 agenda. I believe HIT alignment with clinical operations is the key to success. Dan and Mark seem to be completely in line with this type of thinking.

MUSC has been through the typical IT adoption/integration model; a physician says it would be good if…, the IT department listens then sets out to build it, development and testing happen within IT, the project is completed, and the originating physician says, ” That’s not what I was talking about.” Recognizing the futility of this approach, MUSC set out to change their project management approach. First, they hired a physician CIO and promoted the position to the VP level. From there, they developed a governance process to encourage buy-in, support, and strategic alignment with clinical operations. Next, they developed a Project Management Office and formalized the project management process; focusing on checklists like those used in the airline industry.

The result of this work is seamless alignment between IT and clinical operations. In fact, physicians are so heavily engaged in leading projects that MUSC experienced issues over the title “project manager.” In the end, they had to provide education to separate the role of physician leadership from the process management conducted by project managers. Like all implementations, there were bumps, but the model is working well for MUSC today.

The best part of this session was the “quote feast” generated by the presenters

• Developers always embellish
• Failure does not require scapegoats
• Seats without commitment are best left empty
• Projects have no coach seats

Session: Driving IT Innovation and Quality Across the Enterprise

This session discussed the challenges of connecting disparate systems found as UPMC and was a nice overview of the process they used for integration. Like everyone else, data quality is an issue for utilization of data in the system.

Seems to me that the data quality theme will be one of the major topics for HIMSS10. How will we address data quality? Does limiting those with input access to data solve the problem or is it oversight and integrity checking. Perhaps both approaches are needed. Automation can be an answer, but not everything can be automated and are still facing the daunting challenge of getting what is in the clinician’s head into the medical record for all to share.

With that, I’m off to the bag check and on to O’Hare. Later tonight or tomorrow, I’ll post a overview of my experience at HIMSS09 including pictures and some video (I think). Thanks for reading and tweeting along.

Monday was another packed day at HIMSS09. I’m starting to see some real themes developing at HIMSS this year:

• ROI
• Interoperability
• Frustration
• Person to Person Connectivity

First, ROI. As a sign of the economic times and a maturing of the HIT industry, many are asking, “How is this making money?” or “How is this saving money?” The good news is, I’ve seen many examples of significant efforts that are doing both, saving time and making money. The Conifer Kiosk project I discussed in yesterday’s wrap up springs to mind. Their conservative estimates point to $5 million in real savings just in reducing printing costs.

Interoperability. There is a growing sense of urgency in the realization that we are all working on HIT initiatives, but they all don’t talk to each other and the simply MUST speak the same language. I can send a text message to any cell phone carrier and it works. Why not healthcare?

Frustration. See above.

Connectivity. The primary role in a conference like HIMSS is to connect individuals who share common issues or can help each other find solutions. This year, HIMSS has an increased focus on social networking and the connections being made in that space have been outstanding. The best part of being here is the realization that we have a massive peer group.

On to today. I have and evening flight back home today and will only be able to attend three sessions. On my list today is learning about MUSC’s effort in connecting rural hospitals with academic medical centers, finding the answer to the question, “Who should really be driving the project management bus?”, and then IT strategy re-engineered. I also hope to spend a little more time with the vendors.

What are your thought through this point in the conference? Drop a comment here and share your reflections or expectations.

Here’s to HIMSS09 day 3!

Welcome the second full day of HIMSS09. After yesterday’s marathon sessions and opening reception, I was a little slower in getting out of bed this morning, but still made it in time to hear George Halvorson’s keynote address. Of course, it was a two coffee morning.

The keynote started with a video of people on the streets of Chicago discussing their feelings on medical records and the access that is available for their own records. The responses ranged from hilarious to disturbing; here are two of my favorite lines:

• I’m a physician in my 50s and my goal is to make it out of practice before being required to implement an EMR. EMRs cause 4-5 months of financial turmoil and they have not shown any ROI.
• I live in a small town and they know everything about me. My medical records are available behind the desk in my doctor’s office. If I needed my records, I could just go there and grab them.

I guess we still have a long way to go.

Liz Johnson, HIMSS Vice Chair started things off with a couple of administrative tasks and a quick overview of yesterday. She then discussed the financial report for HIMSS that basically closed before the economy went south. Operating revenue increased by 7% over the past fiscal year and HIMSS is financially sound and poised to lead HIT now and in the future. That was good to hear and judging by the attendance this year, next year’s report will likely be similar.

George Halvorson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, did a great job in setting the stage by outlining some of the most interesting issues facing HIT today. A couple of interesting quotes/facts from his talk:

• The business model of care is based on maximizing the number of things that have fees. We have 18,000 billing codes for procedures and not one billing code for a cure. No billing codes for improved health.
• A Rand study found caregivers got care right only 50% of the time for adults and less than 50% for kids.
• How often doe diabetics get the right care? According to Rand, 8%. If we could move that to 80%, it would cut the number of kidney failures in this country in half.
• He sits on the board of the IOM and their goal is to see 90% of care based on scientific evidence by 2020. In what other industry would we set the bar so low?
• You’ve seen the commercials for new Alzheimer’s drugs and the warning to inform your physician if you are taking various medications before starting on their drug. How pathetically sad it is when we ask Alzheimer’s patients to inform their doctors of the drugs they are taking?

Kaiser seems to be ahead of the curve in their HIT implementation and I would have liked to have another 30 minutes of his talk. I am planning to pick-up his new book, Health Care Will Not Reform Itself. The proceeds from his book are going to a medical charity in Oakland.

Session: The Intersection of Healthcare Reform and Health IT

This session featured Georgia Congressman and physician Phil Gingrey and former Wyoming Governor Jim Geringer. Both men have a history and strong interest in healthcare and after some opening statements, got down to some serious Q&A.

The session opened with discussion of healthcare reform and HIT reform and how the two are required to make any serious change. “If we automate a bad system, all we will have is a really fast, bad system.” Both men seemed to be advocates for wellness and looking beyond episodic care to public health. “Prevention is the key to moving forward; prevention of illness and prevention of bad health.”

One of the most compelling questions came from an individual who outlined how federal regulations (Red Flag Rules, Stark, HIPAA, FDA Regulations, etc.) are putting a squeeze on smaller hospitals and making it harder to keep the doors open. Governor Geringer had the most interesting response, he said, “Your first obligation is to tell somone. The world is run by those who show-up.” While at first I was put off by the answer, the more I thought about it, the more I like it. He encouraged using the Obama Administration’s emphasis on transparency and accountability as a reason to expose just exactly what the federal government is doing to squeeze healthcare providers. Governor Geringer’s quote, “The government’s roll is to recognize when to get out of the way.”

In the end, both men were clearly on the side of fully integrated EMRs which brought another interesting question. Apparently, many supporters of a Michigan RIO have pulled out of the effort to develop their own EMRs and earn their slice of the stimulus package HIT pie. What can be done to address those who were working together and now are off on their own? Neither had a great answer to the question and sited the need for cooperation and interoperability, but missed the general point. Is the ARRA actually being somewhat counter-productive in regard to HIT? We will see.

As for not answering questions, Congressman Gingry had some great comments:

• If I were doing this and it was within my power, I think the adoption of a fully integrated ERM would be goal number 1.
• Patients don ‘t wan t the government standing in the exam room between them and their provider.
• I’m not sure if that answered your question, but I’ve learn politically if you don’t like the question, answer another one.

And that brought me to a big two hour, visit your favorite vendor break. I recognize why HIMSS wants this break, but I don’t particularity like it. The good news is, I had time to write the first half of this post and catch-up on some communication. Suggestion for next year’s HIMSS, more Recharging Stations!

Session: Using an EMR to Find a Needle in the Haystack: The Next Generation of Clinical Decision Support

The session was conducted by Dr. Robin Helm and  their EMR ManagerSandra Olsen who work for St. Joseph Family Medicine Residency in Northeast Wisconsin. They went live with their EMR in 2001 and completed,  feature build-out in 2004, and now are looking into ways to leverage the data that is now available in the system. “The EMR was not important unless we cold improve patient care.”

So, to improve patient care, they started by developing  a quality improvement model

• establish benchmarks
• select champions (utilizing both nursing and physicians is a key)
• set goals based on benchmarks
• write reports
• provide education to provider or patient
• create interactive programs
• apply to other disease populations

They have used this model to improve immunization rates, improve the quality of diabetes care, extend screening for led-related health issues, and many other issues. A side benefit to their system is the availability of quality metrics that can be leveraged on multiple improvement efforts and are used to benchmark physicians against their peers; blinded of course.

My sense of their system is, it is relatively basic, but quite effective. You don’t have to have the most impressive system to improve clinical quality; you just need the data in a structured and meaningful way.

Session: From Kiosks to Web: Self-service Opportunities in Healthcare

The presentation was conducted by Jeff Nieman and Ron Kelley Conifer Revenue Cycle Solutions (an off-shoot of Tenet Healthcare).

This session was one of those moments when your realize that there are people who “get it” out there. Conifer has produced kiosks for online bill payment and patient sign-in that are incredibly successful and producing real cost-savings while improving accuracy. The basic premise is, we want to have self-service and if it’s done right, it will make a big difference.

“Self service is doing exactly what you done before in a self service way.” You don’t need to create a new process for self-service, just do what you do.

In 2008, the first year of the system, they had the following results

• 19,821 patients used the self-service kiosks
• 97.3% of patients successfully signed-in
• 84% of patients did not want a printed paper copy of their forms
• on average, patients took 2.6 minutes to check-in
• 98% of patients were satisfied with the tool
• 48% of users were 55 or older
• 33% corrected their records, improving accuracy of their data

Those are solid numbers and really point to what is going on in the world today. We want automation and self-service. Go to a supermarket, the airport, a Home Depot, they all have kiosks and everyone from kids to seniors are using them. They save time, save paper, and improve accuracy.

Great quote, “If you are not online and paperless, you are missing a huge opportunity for cost savings.” Their ROI model is based on a cost of $.25 per printed page and with the reduction in paper of 80%, they are saving over $5 million annually. That’s a lot of green.

Next up, the HIMSS09 Tweetup. Looking forward to meeting all the tweeps running around here.

HIMSS09 Tweetup

The first annual (I hope) HIMSS Tweetup was a smashing success. I enjoyed meeting as many of the HIT tweeple as I could and hope to stay in touch when we get back to the real world. Kudos to Cesar (@himss) for pulling this together!

This is a very long post and if you didn’t make it to the end, I completely understand. If you did, please share your thoughts on the HIMSS09 conference.

After a night’s sleep and a couple of cups of coffee, I’m thinking back to yesterday’s opening day of HIMSS09 and some themes have come to mind.

First, due to the economic conditions, I expected to see a lot of empty chairs and downsized vendor booths at HIMSS this year and was delightfully surprised. I guess the billions of dollars for HIT in the economic recovery act are keeping the HIT industry moving forward.  Regardless, HIMSS is a much better conference when there are jammed sessions.

The second observation involves the utilization of communities and leveraging of Web 2.0 tools in augmenting and improving the experience at HIMSS this year. Many of us have been tweeting at conferences for a while, but now it is being embraced by the event and the impact is significant. Through the use of Twitter and blogs, we get not only a record of events, but the subtle nuisances found through the interpretation of the messages and how they impacted the individual writing the post or tweet. Yesterday’s Meet the Bloggers session was a lot of fun and I personally enjoyed meeting the other bloggers and the great discussion we had in the room. I only wish we had more time and a bigger room…

As for day 2, I expect to see a continuation of day 1. The George Halvorson keynote should be a highlight of the day and I’m also looking forward to the official Tweet up at 5:30 today. There is nothing better than actually meeting your virtual community fact-to-face. As much as we should embrace technology, we will always still need that personal interaction.

What are your thoughts about HIMSS09?

The first full day of the HIMSS 2009 conference is now officially over and featured a number of highlights for me. Things got off to a rousing start right off the bat for me. Yesterday, I wrote a post about what I was hoping to see at this year’s HIMSS conference and as early as breakfast, I found someone who shares my vision for HIT.

Dr. Douglas Winesett is a Pediatric GI specialist for the University Medical Group in Greenville, South Carolina and he was good enough to let me share his table at breakfast this morning. Dr. Winesett spends about half of his day seeing patients and the other half engaged in information systems to, “have a better understanding of what is happening in the IT world and be able to speak intelligently to our IT staff.” The challenges facing his organization are found throughout healthcare, but his approach was consistent with what I believe is the ultimate goal of HIT, to improve clinical operations and resulting in better outcomes.

We discussed scenarios where a virtual office visit would be appropriate and the types of issues that would be outside of the virtual world. We talked about the sum of human knowledge and how it continues to grow exponentially; to a point where it is not realistic for anyone to keep up with the changes in the industry…even doctors. Here is an opportunity for HIT to fill the gap, give the physician the tools to make informed decisions by providing all relevant data including medical history, outcomes measures, and the latest research, all in real time. A great start to the morning.

Next came my first session: MDs Who IM @ Work: Online Messaging Improves Physician-Patient Communication.

The session featured Dr. Richard Levine of Columbia University and Stephen Rosenthal of Montefiore Medical Center. Dr. Levine started by explaining how he recognized early on that “the patients were ahead of the us and we were behind” when it came to IT. They did not have an EMR and therefore did not have a culture that embraced technology. He said the biggest challenge and biggest barrier to change were the physicians. In 2005 they launched their system with the goal of connecting the physician-patient-community. Today, that system allows patients to request appointments, make virtual office visits, consult a doctor, contact the office, and exchange medical information with the hospital. The doctors who have embraced the system are becoming advocates due to the efficiencies gained. Dr. Levine reported the system allowed him to fill “5 or 6 prescriptions to 5 or 6 pharmacies in about 3 minutes.”

Next, came a similar story from Mr. Rosenthal and Montefiore. They had made a significant investment in the implementation of their ERM and wanted to find ways to leverage the information it contained. The created MyMontefiore system and use the tag line, “get on a health click.” To promote the utilization of their system, Montefiore utilizes a call center. Lessons learned from both implementations include;

• Physician champions are a must for successful adoption
• Outreach and education needed to help doctors understand advantages of the system
• ePrescribing is a true success and the “hook” to accelerate adoption

Next, I attended a session called: Making the Connection to Personalized Care: The Moffitt Cancer Survivorship Portal

Survivorship is the effort centered on returning a cancer patient into the community for ongoing care through the creation of a “passport” or documentation of treatment and care the patient received while under cancer treatment. The goal of the survivorship effort is to extend the continuity of care beyond a cancer center and provide for better patient outcomes. Moffitt has recognized the need for this effort and has a plan in place to build a patient portal to leverage their research and extend the reach of their cancer center into the community. One of the primary lessons learned through the planning and development is the need for quality control over the data that is being pulled into the system. As always, the output is only as good as the input.

While I was in the second session, the conference had an official welcome ceremony that involved a number of athletic demonstrations from Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid process. Here is a video from that event.

The final educational session I attended was called: Keeping the Continuum Current: Bridging the Physician/Health System Communication Gap

This presentation came from Dr. William Jordan and Kim Hummel of the University of Alabama Health System. UAB was experiencing difficulties communicating with referring physicians and obtaining clinical information in a timely manner. The answer to their problems was to develop a physician portal that integrates with their EMR. The EMR development began in 1999 with transcribed documents and now includes encounter records, images, and orders. In 2007, a pilot was developed to provide web-based access to referring physicians of the EMR data.

To access the system, physicians apply for access and the UAB Physician Services Department collaborates with Information Security to issue an RSA token to grant EMR access. To promote awareness of the system, UAB utilizes two physician liaisons to visit community doctors, they exhibit at various medical conferences, and encourage their physicians to write personal letters to community physicians inviting them to use the system. The pilot began in 2007 and they hope to have over 1,000 physicians registered by September. To determine the success of the system, they took a group of physicians who used the system and measured their total referrals in the fiscal year before they were in the system then the referrals sent after they started using the system. For the group, they found and increase of 157 patients after implementation.

After the morning education sessions, it was time for the opening keynote address from Dennis Quaid. Quaid and his wife experienced a near tragic event with their twins when they were accidentally given 1,000 times the normal dose of Heparin twice. Quaid told his story to help reinforce the need for system improvements in healthcare to prevent these type of errors from occurring in the future. His story has resonated with many and is another reminder for us all to be striving for the day when errors like this are a thing of the past. Here is a video of the keynote address I shot:

After a long stroll through the massive vendor exhibit area, it was time for Meet the Bloggers in the Tech Lab. I was invited to present at this round table session with some true innovators in the blogging community and felt privileged to offer my experience to the group. It was fantastic to meet the other bloggers in person and put a face to a Tweet. For more on the session, go to www.himssconference.org/techlab/.

The day concluded with a conference reception, a long line at the shuttle bus, and some giant snowflakes on the way back to the hotel. The day was long, but well worth the effort.

Here’s looking forward to tomorrow!

I’m sitting in the airport in Houston waiting to board my flight to Chicago and started thinking more about this year’s HIMSS conference. When you add the challenges created by the current economic situation to the renewed focus on healthcare, the demands on HIMSS to deliver have never been greater. Professional development allotments and travel budgets are shrinking rapidly and when you do travel, it has to be worth the expense.

With these thoughts, one has to ask, what are you expecting to see at this year’s HIMSS Conference to justify going? For me, I’m hoping for a couple of things: one, evidence of a maturing of the IT industry in healthcare and two, ideas, success stories, and innovation.

Maturing of HIT

How could something that has been around for as many years as HIT need maturing? While HIT has been an important part of the healthcare system, it still remains somewhat of an outsider when it comes to clinical operations. Too many organizations have IT departments that function outside of the core business of healthcare, the treating of patients. Yes, you need IT to support business transactions, but the real magic in HIT will be realized when lives are saved and costs are reduced.  In other words, when HIT has helped to improve the quality of care offered to patients.

What does that look like when HIT is involved in clinical care? You will see integrated EMRs supporting and guiding clinical decisions, data exchanges improving the entire continuity family to physician, cheaper and more accessible access to quality care, elevated awareness and emphasis on wellness, and a true reduction in the cost of care.

For me, it’s time for HIT to show its value. Too often we see the promise of IT improvements and ROI justifications fall short due to implementation, scheduling, planning, or project management problems. We can all sight projects that started with the best of intentions that fell flat at some point along the line. It’s time to deliver projects that make a difference and actually deliver reduced cost and improved care. The successful project should not be the exception it should be the rule. It’s time for HIT to grow-up.

Ideas, Success Stores and Innovation

I know there are many others out there in the HIT world who share my opinion on the maturity issue and they have been working hard on the effective and successful projects I’m describing. What I’m hoping to hear is a growing number of those projects coming to light. I want to see organizations that are pushing the envelope and challenging the old ways of doing business. I want to see those who are using innovative technologies to penetrate bureaucracies and extend the reach of health care to patients around the globe. I want to see the promise of HIT being realized in ways I had not even considered.

Hearing these examples will help me add to a growing peer group of those who are committed to the idea of innovation and improvements through HIT and who are delivering on that promise. Growing a network of peers is the ultimate reason to attend a conference like HIMSS; it attacks those who think alike and gives us all opportunities to share stories, generate ideas, and lean on each other from time to time. While I suspect I will meet many peers in person, thanks to Twitter, blogs, Facebook and other technologies, I will meet many more virtually. In the end, a peer group is a great thing to have.

In about fifteen minutes, we will start our decent into Chicago. The money has been spent, the time has been taken, and now it’s time to deliver.

For those interested, I will be live tweeting during HIMSS via Twitter (@timjedwards) and posting daily conference wrap-ups on this blog each night. If you are going to be at HIMSS, send me a tweet and let me know how things are going. I’m also going to be presenting at the “Meet the Bloggers” roundtable session on Sunday. Stop by and say hi!

Today, I attended Day 2 of the HIMSS Virtual Conference & Expo. This was the final day of the conference and had a slightly shorter agenda than yesterday.

For me, the highlight of today’s presentations was one from Dr. Albert Villarin called Clinical Decision Support in the Trauma Center: A Practical Guide to Clinical, Administrative and Quality Informatics. The talk centered around an impressive use of technology to improve efficiencies and care in a busy Philadelphia trauma center. As a recovering programmer, I was intrigued to discover they were using Cold Fusion 8 as their primary development language. Apparently, reports of Cold Fusion’s demise were greatly exaggerated.

At the end of the conference, a couple of things stuck-out in my mind. First, the integration of process improvement techniques through healthcare information technology (IT) continues to make significant gains in clinical operations. I’m seeing more use of data analysis for the purpose of improving processes and producing better clinical outcomes. My biggest frustration in IT is when IT is used for IT’s sake; not to make significant process improvements. Thankfully, we are seeing more evidence of the “proper” use of technology.

The second major learning for me was the use of Web 2.0 tools that surrounded and augmented the conference, but were not actually part of the conference. HIMSS had a Twitter account and used Twitter to promote and connect attendees during sessions. Personally, I met many others who shared my interests in HIT and Web 2.0 through the use of Twitter. While the conference structure had a “lounge,” the purpose of the lounge seemed more about sales and not so much about networking. Tweeting on Twitter afforded me the opportunity to talk to others about presentations while they were occurring. In a typical conference setting, that type of cross-talk would be frowned upon. Here, it proved to be very beneficial.

For the next virtual conference, I believe HIMSS should explore adding more Web 2.0 features into their conference structure and encourage more of these connections. When establishing my profile, there were opportunities to enter an Instant Messaging ID, but who uses IM anymore? What if the conference took place in Second Life and had actual speaking avatars and meeting rooms? That would be interesting. Perhaps we could leverage professional profiles in LinkedIn to create your vCard as a way of connecting individuals. They could encourage using Twitter in lieu of the Q&A sessions. Perhaps contests could be established to promote use of these and other tools. After all, how can one learn the benefits of emerging technologies unless there is a meaningful purpose to use them?

I found a lot of value in the conference and look forward to the next one in June. I also hope HIMSS will be open to extending the networking capabilities and would be happy to do my part to help.

Yesterday, I attended the first day of the HIMSS Virtual Conference & Expo. HIMSS is the Healthcare Information Management & Systems Society and they describe themselves this way:

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is the healthcare industry’s membership organization exclusively focused on providing leadership for the optimal use of healthcare information technology (IT) and management systems for the betterment of healthcare.

I’ve been a member of HIMSS for the past couple of years, attended the HIMSS conference in 2006, and received my CPHIMS (Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems) certification in May of 2007. Suffice it to say, I believe in this organization and the role they play in healthcare IT.

My background includes spending time in many industries; always in an IT capacity. However, my current position is my first experience in healthcare and HIMSS has played a key role in my education and understanding of the challenges and opportunities within the healthcare industry. As we all know, finding the time for professional development and the budget for travel is becoming an increasing challenge. So, how does a professional find the time and the money to attend training? We attend virtually.

HIMSS offers a virtual conference to their members. The interface is slick and prompted my 17-year-old to say, “Cool” when he first saw it.

Of course, once you get past the glitz of the interface, it all boils down to the presentations which are delivered via WebEx. Let’s face it; a conference is only as good as the presenters and their materials. Fortunately, there were many quality presentations on Day 1, but the highlight was: “Smart Citizens, Smarter Patients: A Primer on Social Media and the Wisdom of Patients” by Jane Sarasohn-Kahn (www.healthpopuli.com). This presentation provided a wealth of information and gave me renewed hope that Web 2.0 and patient-focused care will ultimately improve both the care of patients and promote healthy living.

Now, I’m off to attend Day 2 and perhaps drop-by the vendor area. I’ll post a more complete update later today. If you attend the conference, let me know what sessions you found most useful and I’ll be sure to checkout any good presentations I missed.