From HIMSS 3/6/13–Dr. Jayne’s Update

HIMSS Update

Day 3 at HIMSS and this morning’s run revealed the Harrah’s Employee Health Center. I wonder what platform they use? The weather started to warm up today and it was downright muggy by noon. I spent most of the morning catching up with old friends. It still feels a little strange to have friends that you are very close to and talk with daily but only see once a year at HIMSS or some other meeting. I’m grateful for the opportunity for actual face-to-face interaction especially when beignets are involved.

I spent a good chunk of time on the show floor today, looking for the next big thing. I was happy to see several vendors with their HIStalk sponsor signs prominently placed. It’s always fun to see my avatar smiling back at me and I hope everyone appreciates the hand cramps from all the signing. Thanks to Surgical Information Systems, Orchestrate Healthcare, and Billian’s HealthDATA for sponsoring us and for displaying your signs with pride. I saw a lot of ladies in flip flops today and can only assume they were dancing the night away at HIStalkapalooza and are therefore recovering.

I attended a great lunch and learn session dealing with interoperability and data exchange. I was glad to see a speaker who was even more gloom and doom than I sometimes am about interface and exchange projects. His summary: however difficult you think this is going to be, without the right kind of planning it’s going to be way more difficult and complicated. I’ll be sharing his presentation with several of our internal customers as I try to explain why moving patient data isn’t the same as driving a wheelbarrow of mulch from the hospital’s front landscaping to the back entrance.

One of the cooler things I saw today was PatientTouch. Their “Mobile Care Orchestration” solution looks as good as it sounds. Their iPhone-based solution allows real-time access to care plans, patient lists, medication administration, alerts, and a whole host of other data. They’re partnering with some big folks (including my emergency department vendor) and our nurses would love to get their hands on something like that soon.

I also enjoyed visiting with the folks at Apixio, who knew how to handle a prospect and have a slick-looking solution to extract data from clinical narratives. I’m looking forward to getting it in front of my care managers to see what they think.

Not surprisingly, Judy Faulkner responded to yesterday’s CommonWell Health Alliance announcement by stating it’s a thinly-veiled attempt to attack Epic. I didn’t hear much speculation about it today, but then again I was pretty busy trying to visit 8,000 booths in just a few hours.

I was supposed to meet up with a group of brilliant physician informaticists tonight, but was sidetracked by a crisis at the hospital. Instead of exchanging ideas with great minds, I was sitting on a conference call providing leadership support while the team brought a critical system back up. Not that I added much to the team’s efforts, but I wanted to be there for any escalation requests that needed to be carried up the chain. I hope Inga was able to make it to some gatherings without me.

I’m flying home today to make a board meeting early tomorrow morning, so this will be my last post from HIMSS13. It’s been real, it’s been fun, and most of all, it’s been the Big Easy.