Guest post by Jeff Kaplan, chief strategy officer, ZirMed.
Jeff Kaplan
The 40,000 healthcare and healthcare IT professionals who gathered at the Sands Expo in Vegas brought a different vibe for HIMSS 2016. The halls buzzed with activity and an overall optimism that belied any of the potential causes for uncertainty—politics, a down stock market, increases in uncompensated care, the movement toward fee-for-value, or the staggering shift in patient responsibility.
For those who attended HIMSS 2015 in Chicago, the difference was visible in vendor messaging and audible in conversations during the conference. Among all attendees the optimism seemed well founded, grounded in reality. We all see significant opportunity to drive improvement in healthcare for our generation and generations to come. That’s why we came to HIMSS – we’ve placed our bets.
In that spirit, let’s talk about where healthcare is doubling down, where it’s hit a perfect blackjack, and which trends pushed as providers look for the next deal.
Double Down – Data Interoperability
Out of the gate at HIMSS 2016, there was increased focus and emphasis on the importance of data interoperability and integration. From booth signage to the increase in dedicated vendors to industry veterans evangelizing on the topic, you couldn’t miss the tells from all players—everyone wants to show they have a strong hand when it comes to interoperability. Epic’s Judy Faulkner made a play that Epic wasn’t just the leader of the interoperability movement – they were in fact the originator (see her interview with Healthcare IT Newshere).
Of course, wander off into other parts of the exhibition hall and it wasn’t long before you heard the all-too-familiar complaints about closed-system platforms – that they limit innovation by outside companies and technologists who can build applications to add additional value. In the era of Salesforce.com and other open platform successes, many HIMSS attendees spoke of their hope that companies like Cerner and Epic will follow suit.
Blackjack – Data Analytics
Over the last year vendors heard providers loud and clear – healthcare providers need hard ROI on any new initiatives, especially as many have EHR/HCIS sunk costs in the tens of millions of dollars. They need a sure thing—and the changes evident at HIMSS 2016 reflected that shift. Buzzwords like “Big Data” thankfully went to the wayside and were replaced with meaningful discussion around data analytics and data warehousing. Providers know they’ve amassed a wealth of clinical and financial data—now they’re looking for ways to increase the quality of patient care while driving down costs.
Guest post by Adam Hawkins, vice president client services, CynergisTek.
Adam Hawkins
HIMSS 2016 is right around the corner, and I’m sure everyone is excited about the prospects of conferencing in Las Vegas. This location certainly has a lot going on to keep everyone busy, on and off the exhibit floor. There should be many new healthcare technology players to see and learn about, and it is always interesting to visit the innovation area. Hopefully, we’ll get to hear what folks like KLAS, HIMSS Analytics and other research organizations are working on in 2016 as well.
For instance, KLAS is continuing its work toward including security vendors as its own category, and has a new study underway to look at service providers in this space. That study won’t be completed in time for HIMSS, but they should be able to preview what they hope to accomplish with the study and what its report will include. I think it will be an important read for everyone in our industry.
Interoperability is a huge area of concentration in healthcare at the moment with the Office of the National Coordinator, Health & Human Services and HIMSS all very much involved in this discussion. There are sure to be several presentations on this and related topics. Hopefully we will hear how security and privacy will be addressed, as they are critical components of making many of our health initiatives successful and rely heavily on interoperability for success.
Guest post by Drew Ivan, director of business technology, Orion Health.
Drew Ivan
With such an enormous cross-section of the healthcare industry in attendance, the HIMSS Conference and Exhibition represents a comprehensive snapshot of the state of the healthcare industry and a perfect trendspotting opportunity. Here’s a preview of what I expect will be this year’s conference highlights.
Care coordination and population health and process improvement, workflow and change management are tied for the most popular category, with 29 educational sessions focused on each.
Representing 22 percent of the total number of sessions, this is clearly a focus area for the year’s conference, and it’s easy to see why. Changes in healthcare payment models are now well underway, and they are impacting payer and provider operations where healthcare is delivered, managed and documented.
Providers and payers alike are seeking information about how best to operationalize business processes and provide high quality care under new payment models, but it may be even more interesting to visit the Exhibition Hall to see what innovations vendors are bringing to the market to meet these needs.
Another topic related to changes in healthcare delivery is clinical informatics and clinician engagement, which is all about how new technologies, such as big data and precision medicine, can impact care decisions. The ability to make data-driven clinical decisions is one of the many dividends of widely adopted electronic health records. This is likely to be an important area for many years to come.
With 100 million medical records hacked last year, privacy and security is a hot topic at this year’s conference. The number of educational sessions in this category nearly doubled from 13 last year to 25 this year.
While preventing unauthorized access to records is the top priority, security will be a simpler problem to solve than privacy. As more sources of clinical data go from paper to electronic systems and more types of users have legitimate access to patient data, the problem of providing appropriate, fine-grained access in accordance with patient preferences, clinical settings and laws that differ across jurisdictions becomes very difficult to untangle.
Privacy and security concerns will need to be addressed with a combination of open standards and vendor products that implement them. Technologies from other industries, like banking, are likely to start making their way into healthcare.
This year, health information exchange (HIE) and interoperability educational sessions are combined into a single category, reflecting the fact that interoperability within a single institution is, at this point, more or less a solved problem. The next frontier is to enable interoperability across institutions to support improved transitions of care.
HIEs have a role to play when it comes to moving data between organizations; however, many HIEs are struggling or disappearing because of sustainability challenges. This year’s conference will provide an opportunity to learn best practices from the most successful HIEs. It will also be interesting to see what strategies HIE vendors will pursue as their customer base consolidates. In the Orion Health booth alone, we will have executives from HIEs talking about these same issues.
Big news from HIMSS today about HIMSS16, especially for sports fans. What may make the following news even bigger is if Peyton Manning is in the midst of a retirement reflection period following this current football season. What news it would be if he decided to make an announcement about the future of his career from the HIMSS podium — HIMSSanity!
Here’s the full announcement:
Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning, the NFL’s only five-time Most Valuable Player and a 14-time Pro Bowl selection, will be the closing keynote speaker at HIMSS16. He takes to the podium at 1 p.m. PDT, on Friday, Mar. 4, 2016. The HIMSS Conference & Exhibition ranked as the largest medical conference in North America during the first half of 2015 (Trade Show Executive, September 2015).
Peyton Manning has earned his place among the greatest quarterbacks in league history as the active leader in nearly every statistical passing category.
In each of his three seasons with Denver, Manning has led the Broncos to an AFC West Division title and a first-round playoff bye. During that time, he ranks first in the NFL in regular-season wins, passing touchdowns and completion percentage.
Named 2013 Sportsman of the Year by Sports Illustrated, Manning’s season ended with a trip to Super Bowl XLVIII, making him only the third quarterback in NFL history to lead multiple teams to a Super Bowl.
For his actions off the field, Manning was honored as the recipient of the Byron “Whizzer” White Humanitarian Award and the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year in 2005 as well as the Bart Starr Award in 2015.
Manning serves as a member of the American Red Cross National Celebrity Cabinet and The Pat Summit Foundation Advisory Board. He and his wife, Ashley, established the PeyBack Foundation in 1999 to promote the future success of disadvantaged youth by assisting programs that provide leadership and growth opportunities for children at risk.
Big news from HIMSS today about HIMSS16, especially for sports fans. What may make the following news even bigger is if Peyton Manning is in the midst of a retirement reflection period following this current football season. What news it would be if he decided to make an announcement about the future of his career from the HIMSS podium — HIMSSanity!