The biggest gathering of health information technology executives, thought leaders their regulators and the vendors as well as entrepreneurs who actively support or aspire to advance the industry’s ambitious ‘deliverables’ i.e., enabling the triple aim (better care, better outcomes at lower per capita costs), are gathering in Chicago, Illinois from April 12th-16th 2015.
This will be my 5th HiMSS Conference and the only venue which exceeds it’s breadth, scale and intensity is the CES extravaganza in Las Vegas each January which attracts some 150,000+ visitors in an annual ritual of tech obsessed aficionados. HiMSS by contrast ‘only’ draws some 40,000 +/- into the fold which none-the-less ranks it as the largest healthcare conference in the world as far as I know.
So here we are poised for an interesting gathering of a giant industry populated by an ecosystem of eclectic stakeholders that range from vendors, health systems, physician organizations, MSOs, ACOs, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and a smattering of patient advocates that has taken some collective hits recently. While the ‘HealthIT decade’ that HITECH ushered in preceded the Affordable Care Act and its continuing implementation complexity and unrelenting ideological challenges (both in the courts and via political theater in Washington, D.C.) are separate legislative constructions, their health policy synergy and de-facto inter-dependence can not be denied.
Any move from a volume-to-value healthcare delivery and financing paradigm can NOT succeed without the informational spine and related analytics (business intelligence or “BI”) such a shift requires. In other words, no ubiquitous healthIT spine and no accountable care, or success surviving if not thriving under bundled payment let alone fulfilling the vision of a population based (PMPM or derivative) health enterprise, community or ecosystem – if you will.
My sense is there’s lot at stake this year and we may in fact be at an inflexion point. For instance, the ‘s venue value proposition, particularly given the abundance, relevance and utility of its rich educational tracks, but also the products and services solutions featured must demonstrate value to an industry some say is ‘at risk’ of collapse of its own weight, internal inconsistencies and downright payment schizophrenia absent fundamental re-design.
So if you can not make it to HiMSS 2015 in person, there is an online option available here. And of course, there will be substantial participation by many, including the HiMSS 2015 Social Media Ambassador team to ‘tweet out’ interesting stuff from the conference.
The principal hashtag is #HiMSS2015 and the digital dashboard is here.
Health Innovation Media will be actively interviewing thought leaders. keynote speakers and spotlighting innovation wherever we can find it.
Our core production team of Gregg Masters (@2healthguru) and Douglas Goldstein (@eFuturist) will again be supplemented by known twitterati including Matthew Holt (@boltyboy), co-founder Health 2.0 (@health2con), Geeta Nayyar, MD (@GNayyar) and perhaps even Neil Versel (@nversel).
See you in Chicago or in the twittersphere!
For a bit of a preview of one of the sessions ‘From CMIO to CHIO‘ by co-presenter Luke Webster, MD, CMIO of Christus Health see:
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