Electronic Health Reporter

The HIMSS Innovation Center stands as a marquee venue for organizations wishing to build their brands and market their health IT-related services both locally and globally. As a result, less than two years after its opening, 20 organizational collaborators have established a presence at the 30,000-foot facility located on Cleveland’s lakefront.

Attracted also by the HIMSS Innovation Center presence on the 4th floor of the Global Center for Health Innovation, collaborators have dedicated exhibition space, and many other benefits relating to the use of the facility and participation in HIMSS events. Collaborators can join at one of four levels – Founding, Strategic, Industry and Supporting.

“Many organizations are inquiring about reserving space at the HIMSS Innovation Center,” said John Paganini, HIMSS senior manager of interoperability initiatives, noting that HIMSS Pinnacle Corporate members automatically become supporting collaborators of the HIMSS Innovation Center. “There are increasing opportunities to create awareness as events are added and the Global Center for Health Innovation continues to become the premier destination for healthcare professionals.”

HIMSS Innovation Center Founding collaborators are Alego Health, Federal Health Architecture, HealthIT.gov, and MCPc. Industry collaborators are CareFusion, Cleveland Clinic Innovations, Fujitsu, IHE USA ICSA Labs, Netscout Systems, and OnX Enterprise Solutions. Supporting collaborators are Calfee, Halter and Griswold LLP, CDW Healthcare, Cardinal Health, Direct Consulting Associates, John Carroll University, Juniper Networks, ScriptPro, Sectra, and Total Voice Technologies.

Founding collaborator Alego Health leads to way toward innovation
Headquartered in Westlake, Ohio, just outside of Cleveland, Alego Health advocated for the establishment of the HIMSS Innovation Center as a natural fit with the Global Center for Health Innovation next door. Alego Health uses the HIMSS Innovation Center to showcase its products and services during events and through presentations to customers. The company also interviews candidates for employment during recruitment events at the center and conducts training programs for employees and partners there.

Alego Health’s interactive exhibit at the HIMSS Innovation Center includes six iPads and two InTouch screens, through which individuals can learn more about Alego Health and its product and service offerings. “They can contact us directly, if we’re not there as part of a scheduled event, and we can create a Skype connection to the exhibit and have a discussion,” said Jonathan Levoy, Alego Health executive vice president.

As one of the nation’s premier full-service health IT providers, Alego Health sees its presence at the HIMSS Innovation Center as key to its brand and market positioning – to work with healthcare organizations of all sizes to advance the continuum of patient care through the adoption of technology, Levoy said.

OnX Enterprise Solutions establishes footprint in hot local market
OnX Enterprise Solutions is headquartered in Toronto and New York, with more than 25 locations throughout North America and the United Kingdom, including one just outside of Cleveland in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. Ron Nemecek, a technical sales specialist at OnX, said the HIMSS Innovation Center gives the company’s healthcare practice a strategic footprint in the Cleveland tri-county area, which he describes as a “hotbed for healthcare.”

A platinum-level reseller of Hewlett Packard (HP) products and provider of a range of technology services and solutions, OnX has used the HIMSS Innovation Center for strategy meetings with HP, client briefings, and participation in events held at the center. For example, the company will have a presence at the upcoming Cleveland Medical Hackathon in September. OnX’s HIMSS Innovation Center exhibit focuses on HP-based solutions, including an interactive demo that provides visitors access to the entire HP catalog via a touch screen. The exhibit’s monitors display the OnX value proposition for healthcare.

OnX uses its partnership with HP as launch pad to offer and provide a comprehensive catalog of services to clients. The OnX team of more than 600 highly skilled professionals works alongside the industry’s best technology partners to optimize client investment in human and capital resources. “We’re the master translators for our clients, Nemecek said. “We understand IT infinitely. Our value is bringing the client’s lines of business and IT together to design the right solution from discovery to delivery.”

A hub for HIMSS Interoperability Services
HIMSS Innovation Center collaborators also gain visibility among healthcare organizations searching for interoperability solutions, as the center hosts and works virtually with organizations wishing to take advantage of the new HIMSS Interoperability Services program, which features the ConCert by HIMSS interoperability certification program – an alliance of HIMSS, IHE USA, and the EHR HIE Interoperability Workgroup. ICSA Labs conducts testing of the interoperability of vendor health IT products seeking certification. The HIMSS Interoperability Services program provides a road map to both vendors and providers seeking interoperability and facilitates access to testing tools, resources and subject matter experts. The center facilitates physical and virtual interoperability testing for health IT product vendors, healthcare providers and health information exchanges.

More than 190 events hosted
Featuring state-of-the-art conference and educational facilities, the HIMSS Innovation Center has hosted more than 190 events with over 9,000 attendees since opening in October 2013. Organizations having used the facility for meetings include Apple, Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses (AORN), Bernstein, Cleveland Clinic, GE Healthcare, HIMSS North America and various HIMSS chapters, Hyland Software, Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE), John Carroll University, Johnson Controls, Metro Health, PartsSource, Philips, Republican National Convention, University Hospitals Health System and Verizon. Often hosting international audiences, the center is proximate to the Global Center for Health Innovation and the Cleveland Convention Center in downtown Cleveland, where the Republican National Convention will be held in 2016.

In addition, the HIMSS Innovation Center’s Learning Center features displays and resources on five health IT hot topics — privacy and security, health business solutions, connected health, interoperability and standards, and analytics. Other areas of note include the Learning Center, an interactive, collaborative system demonstrating how interoperability delivers the right information to the right people at the right time, and a resource library with featured collections, podcasts and newsletters about interoperability and standards, informatics and health information exchange.