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HIMSS Wrap-up 3/8/13 – Inga’s Update

March 8, 2013 News 4 Comments

From Brian Ahier: “Re: HIMSS.  Aside from HIStalkpalooza (which was awesome and thank you very much for inviting me!) where I got to spend over a half hour having a fascinating and detailed conversation with Judy Faulkner. A couple of other highlights were the interviews I got with Jeb Bush and Karl Rove. They are not your usual HIMSS attendees. I even got Rove to make a statement on health IT for YouTube.” Love the picture of Judy holding her HISsie award for Best Leader of a Healthcare IT Vendor or Consulting Firm. Mr. H doesn’t want to run the photo because he knows Judy doesn’t enjoy having her picture published, but she looks happy holding her HISsies award. Thanks for sharing the YouTube of Rove, who claims he is a big fan of HIT.

3-5-2013 6-23-35 AM

From Fashion Conscious: “Re: porno nurse. I’d like to contact the vendor who had the nurse in the porno get-up. Do you know or can you find out who that was? The picture has gone viral and nurses are not amused and want to let them know. I’m less prudish than anyone you know and a good sport but if they had an MD in a G-string or CEO in his undies people would be aghast. It amazes me that this Neanderthal thinking continues. It plays out in disrespect to nurses by IT.” I am totally with Fashion Conscious on this one. It’s not only offensive to nurses, but to women in general. And while some marketing type (male, I am sure) thought it would be a great way to attract all those male CIOs, I am certain plenty of men agree that the look works far better at Hooters than HIMSS. I am not certain of the vendor because someone sent me the picture. If you can identify the vendor, please share.

From H2O Lover: “Re: New Orleans. We should never have HIMSS in NOLA again. The city can’t support this many people!” Sadly I have to agree. I was one of the lucky ones with a hotel room two blocks away and didn’t have to mess with overfull buses or long taxi lines. I know Jazzfest and Mardi Gras bring bigger crowds than HIMSS, though more I assume more folks are local and don’t need hotel rooms. Still, I love New Orleans (even though I didn’t see much of it this visit) and found the convention center much easier to navigate than the Sands in Las Vegas.

Through Thursday morning, total HIMSS attendance was 34,696, which included 13,985 professional attendees. At the same point in 2012, registration was 36,586 with 15,262 professional attendees.

3-8-2013 12-38-02 PM

HIMSS annual leadership survey finds that nearly two-thirds of HIT professionals in provider organizations surveyed have already qualified for MU Stage 1 and three-fourths expect to qualify for Stage 2 in 2014. Eighty-seven percent of respondents expect to complete their conversion to ICD-10 by the October 2014 deadline.

3-8-2013 3-26-03 PM

I loved the final keynote featuring James Carville and Karl Rove. I don’t think they figured out the answers for the economy, healthcare, or any other issues, but the two were entertaining. Rove was witty and supported his arguments with a lot of data. Carville supported his views with a different set of data, of course, and also sometimes rambled, but had a number of laugh-out-loud one-liners, including:

This ain’t Fox News. You can’t just make stuff up.

Prices on a hospital bill mean as much as a price tag on a rug in Istanbul.

I may not be from Wisconsin, but I am going to milk this thing pretty good.

3-8-2013 3-28-44 PM

Wednesday I waited about 30 minutes in the Starbucks line (it was more about catching up with a friend than the coffee.) As we neared the front, a representative from Iatric (Judy, I believe) handed out $2 off coupons for the next 12 people in line if we agreed to wear an Iatric slap band. It was a brilliant and effective marketing idea and I bet I wasn’t the only one who stopped by the Iatric booth to say thanks.

I primarily work out of my house, ,and during the work day, I rarely talk to anyone in person or on the phone. However, I can be a Chatty Cathy and enjoyed bantering in the Starbucks line with Julie from RF Ideas, who happens to wear the same perfume as me and likes the same brand of flats that I was wearing.

Sometimes I forget that not everyone goes to HIMSS to check out the bleeding edge stuff. I talked with the purchasing manager for a large health system who said her primary mission was to find a good source for batteries and power supplies for her COWs. I guess that is why fax vendors still shell out money to exhibit.

I was disappointed that so many of the exhibitors were packing up their booths two hours before the floor closed. I was with a physician friend who was interested in an EHR solution for a niche specialty and had identified the exact vendor he wanted to see. When we got to the booth, everything was boxed up, though the rep did open his laptop and show us a few things. The same guy told us that you can’t “clone” previous chart notes and insert them into new notes because it was a violation of HIPAA. My friend quickly advised him that whether or not cloning was an acceptable practice had nothing to do with HIPAA.

I love to ask other people their impression of the convention and what people were talking about. I was surprised that no one I asked mentioned ICD-10 as a big issue. I am not sure if that’s because organizations already have identified their ICD-10 solution or because ICD-10 is simply not their area of concern. I didn’t find anyone overly impressed with the CommonWell announcement, though I somewhat disagree. The only other big announcement was the Allscripts acquisitions of dbMotion and Jardogs, which wasn’t exactly earth-shattering news.

After five days of HIMSS, I am left with the impression that the industry is moving past the emphasis on core EMR and HIS systems and looking for solutions that make existing systems work better. The exhibit hall was full of vendors offering integration and interoperability solutions. Even more vendors were promoting data analytics and population management tools. Other smaller vendors were demonstrating niche solutions that bolted on or worked behind the scenes with core applications to improve the user experience (such as a more user-friendly user interface) or to add functionality (e.g., clinical decision support tools.) Patient engagement tools were also hot.

I think Farzad had it right in his keynote speech when he noted that the transformation process is far from complete. Organizations have implemented many of the basic EMR functions, but now providers are just beginning to take the collected data and consider ways to use it to improve the care process. Usability is still hindering adoption, so providers mush push vendors to improve usability. At the same time, providers need to develop and embrace more efficient and effective workflows.

Inga large

E-mail Inga.



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Currently there are "4 comments" on this Article:

  1. Many thanks for the fantastic HIMSS reporting, scouting, humor, analysis and wrap up. I wish i could have attended and for maybe next year I’ll lobby harder! But I’ve gotta get my shoes together! May I ask what brand of flats you prefer?

  2. My impression of HIMSS 2013:
    – Saddened to see HIMSS trolley – we need to walk more, not less
    – Amazed at the numbers of “conference” rooms built on the floor and above the hall; good for all to efficiently use the conference for sit-downs that aren’t just social events over expensive meals
    – REALLY big name general sessions; seemed to be fewer breakouts and several were weak (or am I getting older and wiser making it harder to learn more off the exhibit floor?).
    – No one talking about ICD-10 but MANY booths touted ICD-10 offerings
    – Sympathy for 10×10 booths off the main aisle by more than two booths
    – Good wrap-around/add-on tools (especially analytics/dashboards, etc) but come with uncertainty of cost/aggravation to make them work
    – Conventions generate big dollars for the tradespeople – giant booths!
    – Especially sorry to never connect with Inga!

  3. Yes, it was Onyx Healthcare with the “porno nurse.” They were our neighbors and we had plenty of nurses stop by our booth to complain. Our own RN took names to add to her letter of complaint that she plans to send to HIMSS.







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