From HIMSS 2/21/11

From KR: “Re: HIStalkapalooza. Let me be the first – this event has to be the highlight of the week! The awards, by Bush, were absolutely fantastic. Could not have hard a better MC. Thanks so much for a great event!” You knew it was going to be good if you watched JB waiting to go on – he was like a horse that couldn’t wait to run a race (if horses drank beer beforehand, that is). He was amazing, although he may cringe when he sees his words played back from the multi-camera video recording that was being made.

From Bobby Orr: “Re: HIStalkapalooza. Great time, big fan a good blues band, thank you. Largest  HIMSS ever over 30K attendees, but only about 9k providers is what I understood but I’ll leave that to the HIStalk  team to confirm the numbers.” They said 31K in the opening session, but I bet most weren’t providers. We’ll try to get specifics.

From West Coast Viewer: “Re: CHW. Ben Williams, CIO at CHW, has resigned, effective 4/15/2011.” Unverified.

From Rodgrigo Barnes: “Re: Pennsylvania Health Information Exchange. Medicity contract cancelled.” Unverified. I need to get clarification from Medicity, but the purported e-mail suggests that the state didn’t like PHIX’s strategic plan or its selection of Medicity, which the e-mail said AT&T protested. Also claimed is that the contract value was about was $31.7 million, only $17.1 million of which would be be covered by federal taxpayer dollars. I’ll get more information. It sounded like budget was the big problem.

From VIP CIO: “Re: VIPs. I had the same reaction as you to the article about ‘VIP Treatment.’ The first rule of being an executive is to appear to be getting less special treatment than you are actually getting. I am e-mailing you from the VIP lounge at HIMSS. It is pretty simple, but in the mad house that is HIMSS, it is a great perk. While the lines at the coffee vendor stands are 40 people long, I was able to come in and get a free cup of hot coffee in a china mug. There is soda on ice and water, too. There are nine tables and four workstations with Internet-connected computers and printers. It is kind of quiet, people are avoiding eye contact. One more thing — ribbons are for people that lack self-esteem. I agree CMIOs are major players, but they don’t need a ribbon to prove it. If they want recognition they can carry their medical degree. Nobody in the lounge is wearing a ribbon. Again, we know that it is not good to call attention to our special treatment. Gotta go, the massage therapist is here (just kidding).” I’m a little bit miffed – I pay the same dues and conference registration fees as CIOs, so why am I an inferior HIMSS member who doesn’t get the same perks?  

Thanks to everybody who came to HIStalkapalooza. Thanks, too, to Dave Lareau and Medicomp, their events and video people, BB King’s, the Insomniacs, our red carpet greeters, our shoe and King/Queen contestants, and Jonathan Bush.  I left early and will be up late, as usual, but everybody seemed to be having fun. Personally, I found JB’s beer-fueled riffs to be the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time – better than MS3TK. Since I’m writing this after several beers, please forgive any slip-ups. I bet nobody else left the event to work several more hours — that’s my excuse.

The limo will run 9 a.m until noon or so Tuesday, cruising around I-Drive. Flag it down and get a luxury ride to the convention center. I’ve ridden in it a couple of times now and it was pretty cool. That’s the very sweet Jan above who was driving today, although I’m not sure we’ll have her again tomorrow.

Medicomp gave away iPads with its new Quippe product to physicians attending HIStalkapalooza. Drop by their booth Tuesday and take a 20-minute training session and you’re in drawing for several more (both physicians and non-physicians will be chosen). I didn’t explain it well, but just stop by and they’ll fill you in.

I’m going to save all the news and other items since it’s getting really late. Here are some random observations from the day, most of them about booths.

• I got nothing from the opening session. I didn’t thing the videos and a capella guys were all that interesting. Robert Reich was too basic and to general to hold my attention. I’m sure he’s really smart, but his talk seemed dumbed down for people who pay zero attention to economics and politics. Not much healthcare in it, either, although obviously Medicare expenses can’t keep rising and he said so.
• Actually, I did get one thing from the opening session: frostbite. My teeth were chattering afterward and every room I was in was just as cold. Floridians crank that AC down for sure.
• I went to two other sessions. Both were terrible. I didn’t learn anything after sitting in sessions all morning.
• The Onyx people had a pretty cool booth, with the ladies wearing red dresses and one wearing a Cinderella-looking outfit. I don’t get it, but it was cute.
• Ingenix had a huge booth with the logos of their acquisitions on the sign – Picis, Axolotl, Lynx Medical, A-Life Medical, HER, and Ingenix Consulting.
• MEDSEEK had a nice two-story model with a guy from The Apprentice doing something or other.
• iMDsoft had sleek version with lots of coffee urns.
• A couple of the Salar guys gave me a booth pitch not knowing who I was. They did a great job, which smaller companies often don’t – they had their story down pat, talked benefits instead of features, and referenced client sites.
• OnBase had its usual sports bar and that smarmy but funny card trick guy, neither changed in the last decade, it seems, but still cool.
• Walden University had a Kinect soccer game where you could try to kick goals over animated opponents.
• Nuvon had oranges as giveaways and a couple of other vendors had apples. Good idea for a health-oriented conference.
• Unity Medical had cool “cones of silence” that looked like old-fashioned hair dryers, which allowed people standing under them to hear the audio from their videos even with exhibit hall noise. They provide instructional and motivational health videos that seemed pretty cool.
• Sage used a red color as a theme quite effectively.
• Awarepoint did a good pitch when I dropped by anonymously. The guy qualified my interest and need very quickly, then gave some good examples of similar deployments. Nicely done for just a casual chat that I didn’t even ask for.
• EDIMS – had a nice setup and a big presence for a mid-sized booth.
• Allscripts had a massive spread using their new green color. Looked good.
• Emdeon had pretty cool orange shirts and a café table setup. They were talking health information exchange.
• Medicomp had their HIStalk sign front and center. They also had a two-sided theater, one playing a recorded demo and the other live.
• Elsevier had a water cooler, something simple that you don’t often see.
• InSite One had an incrementing counter of studies and images done.
• MEDecision had some cool light-up panels and a real Starbucks setup.
• ESD had the most unusual items – flip flops, fondue, and wheatgrass. Nice people, too. I think they may have been the most creative with the space they had.
• Epic put out signs covering their KLAS scores. The lovely Maggie noticed me checking them out, told me that was her job to publicize their scores, and ran back to get me a handout of every sign on their booth walls. Obviously their KLAS scores are shockingly good, lots of green in a sea of competitor yellow and red, but the fact she was so attentive and tasked with managing their score displays impressed me. They still had the fireplace, the wacky art, and Judy hanging out. They also had a sign for Canto, an iPad-based physician dashboard with dictation and messaging (new, I think).
• Nuance had a theater presentation about the new CAPD product built with 3M.
• Enovate had its usual carts, wall mounts, and articulated arms. Very sexy and smooth. Nice people, too.
• Somebody had mini Moon Pies, but my writing is too sloppy to decipher who (looks like Med Worth, but it could be anything).
• Rubbermaid had a cool water cascade right in the middle of their booth.
• Merge had a bunch of cool stuff – kiosks, the Tesla car that you could get your picture taken in, a wall of candy, and video games.
• Clairvia had coffee, a nice demo area, and their HIStalk sign on the table.
• Airwatch had cool management tools for mobile devices like IT shops use for PCs, allowing iPads, iPhones, and any devices to be secured, updated, and managed. They’re new to healthcare, but other clients include Walmart and Coke. This was one of the more interesting things I saw. I talked to the co-founder and he definitely had his pitch down pat.
• GetWellNetwork had their peds application running – very colorful and fun for education and applications.
• IBM had a ton of people visiting their booth. They were pushing the Watson connection.
• Microsoft also had a lot of people, demoing Vergence, HealthVault, and some other stuff. Their signs spelled HIMSS  as HIMMS, though.
• Vocera had our sign out. They also did a nice demo for me on the fly, under their own version of the cone of silence to allow you to hear the device talking.
• CattailsMD was giving away some kind of Buzz Lightyear action figure.
• AT&T had loads of people. I looked at Connect, a learning portal that also streams video. The coolest part is that the tool auto-indexes the audio track of a video, allowing it to be searched by any word without a transcription or manual keyword step. I didn’t know technology like that existed. You’d think YouTube would have it given that it’s owned by Google
• Perceptive had our sign out and was demoing their imaging application.
• Advisory Board had a big booth, ironically just two booths down from that of HIMSS Analytics where Dave Garets left to go there.
• PatientKeeper had a big rack of mobile devices and an effective slogan, “Reinventing CPOE.” Lots of people were checking it out.
• e-MDs had our sign out – thanks!
• Vitalz had a race car simulator.
• SIS used color extremely well, dressing their female booth people in light blue sweaters and the guys in blue Oxford shirts, both making the red and white SIS logo really stand out. They also had very cool theater chairs in the same red. Best use of color for sure.
• Wolters Kluwer had a golf simulator.
• Sunquest had a large booth with that green color that I really like. Thanks for the Chapstick – I needed some.
• McKesson’s spread was huge. It also had a giant electric billboard. There was nothing muted about the color or the design.
• Siemens had a booth that needed its own ZIP code. The wall of lights must have been 20 feet tall.
• Medicity had a nice crowd and an HIStalk sign right on their main podium.
• RelWare had the Back to the Future DeLorean, accepting donations for Team Fox.
• Cumberland Consulting Group had our sign out. They were way down on the end in the 6900 row.
• SourceCorp was giving away small wooden baseball bats.
• MobileMD had a foot massage machine. They also talked about their 100% “would recommend” HIE solution.
• Orchestrate Healthcare had some cool yellow colors, including fresh flowers and bags. They also had our sign front and center.
• Lockheed Martin had a huge liquid nitrogen tank that was pretty scary to behold. I think (and hope) they were doing something with ice cream.
• Billian’s had our sign out and was giving out flash drives, the only ones I saw.
• RelayHealth’s booth was lit up in pink and each demo station was surrounded by shimmering curtains. I might give them the Best Design award. They had a lot of people checking them out.
• Alert had a long booth that was kind of confusing, but they did have cute white outfits and were demoing in some language that wasn’t English. I thought it was interesting
• Pulse had a nice booth and a card guy.
• Pepid had the first guy I’ve ever seen doing a theater presentation who read directly from index cards and didn’t even try to hide that fact.
• Chipsoft had the cute yellow shoes again.
• HCA had a booth to recruit people in informatics, pharmacy, Meaningful Use, and Meditech.
• HT Systems (the palm reader people) was one of the companies in the New and Emerging Technologies section, with stand-up areas instead of full booths. Check that area out since those are the up-and-comers everyone says they want to support. Also there was My Health Direct. Both companies had their HIStalk signs out.
• ONC had a sizeable booth. They were giving away money (kidding).
• MED3OOO had a couple of really cool giveaways – little preloaded bubblegum machines and a nice computer cleaner with one gadget for the screen and another for the keyboard.
• Success EHR had the nicest people I ran across, two cute girls making fresh popcorn.
• MedAssurant was making fancy coffee like café con leche and café cubano.

That’s all I have time for tonight. Back at it tomorrow. Hopefully folks will send me pictures from HIStalkapalooza since I didn’t bring a camera. I believe Medicomp was planning to have video from tonight running in their booth Tuesday, so drop by.  

E-mail me.

HERtalk by Inga

Just a super quick post before I start my beauty regime for HIStalkapalooza!

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A couple of pics of the nicely presented food at the reception last night. It’s hard to cook for 20,000, but I guess it was tasty enough.The best part of the evening: hanging out with Mr. H and critiquing the whole affair. I then joined some friends for one glass of wine (the glass never went empty, so I am assuming it was only one glass). Regardless, I made it to bed probably too late, but was up at 6:00 a.m. and in time for my painfully early 7:00 a.m. breakfast. Fortunately I arrived in style in the HIStalk limo, the interior of which is probably bigger than the bathroom in my budget hotel.

I’ll provide more details on my day tomorrow, but wanted to share some additional photos from the day.

He wins. ‘Nuff said.

I am guessing that she was concerned she wouldn’t have time to change clothes before the party tonight, so she wore her gown to the booth. Sorry I don’t remember the vendor, but the girls were good sports.

A little business meeting with the HIStalk sponsor sign prominently displayed. Thanks, iMDSoft.

Merge bought me lunch.

I thought the skirt was a wee short, but this guy thought it was worth looking at more than once.

I sat on the floor for awhile recharging my phone. What’s up with the official “recharging stations” having no power connected to them? I did find that by sitting on the floor I was nicely positioned to check out shoe fashions.

Much, much more later, including HIT X 2.0, commentary on exhibits and vendors, and some gossip. Look for big announcements probably tomorrow from Microsoft, Cisco, and perhaps Gateway EDI.

E-mail Inga.

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne

I was dying to post pictures today, but with my employer locking down my Facebook, it was difficult.  Inga beat me to the knight in shining armor, but be on the lookout for lots of other photos as she and I cruised the exhibit hall together.  Let me tell you, we saw some prime photo opportunities.

My goal today was to visit all of HIStalk’s sponsors.  I didn’t make it everywhere, but I did make it to quite a few.

A couple of shout outs:

• Iatric Systems (3601) is offering a special drawing for HIStalk readers, but also has a guy shooting trick pool shots.  Pretty entertaining!
• Enterprise Software Deployment (2777) not only has a special reader drawing, but also was giving away flip flops and sports sandals and had fondue in the booth.  Perfect for a mid-day pick-me-up!

Keep your eye out for the autographed (by Mr. H and Inga) signs alerting you to vendors who are HIStalk sponsors.  Be sure to tell them you read HIStalk.  Maybe next year I’ll get here early enough to put my physician-esque scrawl on some of them.

I said I’d be visiting Merge Healthcare to check out their kiosk solution, and was happy to find their Wall of Candy as well as a nice demo of their product.  I was a little concerned by the sales rep scanning her own drivers’ license and swiping a credit card, but I guess they can control where it goes.  I wonder, though, does the kiosk come in hot pink or zebra stripe?  They also have video games, including Big Buck Hunter.  Good for a break when you’re tired of walking the floor.

I visited Surgical Information Systems and was pleased to see that this year, not only were they serving the IngaTini but also the InterOpTini which is more my speed.  They also had chocolate covered everything, and I am the kind of girl that appreciates that.  Thanks again for the hospitality!

FormFast has a great Indiana Jones “Peril of the Untamed Workflow” theme and was throwing fedoras into the audience, but I wasn’t lucky enough to get one.

The “Best Badge” award goes to the attendee who replaced his first name with “Talk To Me” in bold letters.  I didn’t fully appreciate the value of that badge until I was given the brush off by a couple of vendors. 

News flash – you might want to find out a bit about the prospects that stop by so that you can make an educated pitch to them.  And if you can’t answer the questions, find someone in your booth who can, or schedule a follow up.  Trying to “fake it” is just really a bad idea and we can tell.

I enjoyed seeing so many members of the armed forces at HIMSS11 today and wanted to take the opportunity to thank all of you for your service to our country and around the world.  We appreciate each and every one of you and the excellent healthcare you provide to our troops and their families.  Seeing you puts everything in perspective and is an excellent reminder for those of us that tend to get focused on what in comparison are some fairly petty issues.  We’re not trying to keep systems up while caring for wounded on the battlefield or anything like that, and you deserve our utmost respect.

The big ticket of the day was of course HIStalkapalooza, and major thanks to Medicomp for their support.  It was a great bash and certainly one to remember. Thanks to my many new friends, especially Evan – your velvet jacket made my night.

E-mail Dr. Jayne.