Dr. Jayne Goes to HIMSS Digital – Wednesday

I rolled out of bed for an early morning client call, which I would have had to do had I been in person in Las Vegas, but it was at 7 a.m. rather than 5 a.m. so I was grateful. Rather than a $33 room service coffee such as the one Mr. H mentioned yesterday, I opted for a Diet Coke with my morning bagel.

Once clients were done for the day, I got ready to tune in to HIMSS, only to have the neighbor’s lawn care service join the party. I’m used to it by this point and was ready with a headset, but it just illustrates the contrast between HIMSS in-person and HIMSS Digital.

I had a little bit of frustration with the programming this morning as I logged into what was supposed to be a keynote session. Instead of getting a typical intro for a keynote speech, we started out with 10 minutes of banter between the hosts. They were again pushing the Leaderboard Challenge and the participation prizes, this time sweetening it with not only a Starbucks gift card, a HIMSS membership, and a paid registration for HIMSS22, but an Alex Rodriguez autographed baseball. The host was giddy with excitement when talking about it. Personally, I’d rather have a Farzad Mostashari autographed bow tie, but that’s just me.

When the keynote speaker, Arianna Huffington, finally arrived, the presentation was more like an interview than a keynote. I guess I’ve become too accustomed to actual keynote speeches where the speaker is up on a stage, or if virtual is delivering prepared remarks, rather than having what feels like an impromptu conversation. The discussion went on for about 20 minutes and covered some good points, then it was back to the hosts and the “HIMSS Community Wall.” Host Chris tried to amp up the audience with an enthusiastic “Hey healthcare changemakers, temperature check time!” and honestly I didn’t even know what to say to that.

The next segment was “Global Burnout: Can Digital Transformation Be the Cause and the Cure?” The speakers had some good points about burnout in general among clinicians, and it warmed my heart when the speaker from Stanford talked about how important it is to have clinical informatics physicians involved in major technology projects. Overall, the consensus was that all of us are suffering with some degree of burnout and I certainly agree. One panelist talked about how when her institution implemented an EHR, she swapped her 20% clinical work for 20% teaching because the work required to learn the EHR wasn’t worth it. Another panelist who is a subspecialist discussed being re-tasked to the emergency department during COVID and how glad she is to be back doing colonoscopies.

They talked about how delivering telehealth causes a different kind of exhaustion than in-person care – where people are not getting up from their desks, not taking restroom breaks, not eating or drinking, and having to provide technical support for patients when the physicians themselves weren’t equipped to do so. She noted that for the people who think telehealth is easier, thinking about it in that way is a mistake.

They also discussed what their institutions were doing to prevent burnout. One panelist noted that her organization has a team that calls patients pre-visit and does the technical check-ins to remove that burden from providers. Her organization also pushed a program called “Home for Dinner” which encouraged workflows to allow providers to finish their office days quicker and get home to their families. They used EHR data and personal observations to create individual learning plans to help providers. Inbox optimization and creation of refill protocols were also part of the initiative. Of those who completed the program, 85% of physicians recommended that their peers participate, so now they have a waiting list. I wish more organizations would take this approach, but of course training is just another budget line item that often gets overlooked yet leads to provider dissatisfaction.

The final part of the session was about preparing future clinicians for the digital workforce. The moderator’s feed was having issues with the video not lining up with the audio, which was distracting. There was good conversation about the need for 1:1 mentoring for clinicians who want to work in tech, identifying skills gaps and trying to develop existing workers. Other comments included the need to set up designated training programs to ensure clinicians are ready to embrace digital health.

Vendor notes: Podium sent an invite at 9 a.m. for their event at Topgolf tonight. It came to an email address that isn’t registered for HIMSS so I’m not sure how I got on the list or why the invites went out so late, but good try!

Presenter tips from the HIMSS Digital trenches:

• If you’re using a ring light, do a brief video of yourself and make sure your ring light is not reflecting in the lenses of your spectacles. You’ll thank me later when you don’t release a timeless recording of yourself with weird circles over your eyes and your audience will thank you for not providing that as a distraction.
• Test your audio and do a brief recording of yourself and see how you sound. Not all devices have good microphones and sometimes people using Bluetooth headsets experience feedback or weird static sounds compared to using a wired microphone. Understanding microphone gain is important to make sure you’re not too quiet and that you don’t have to yell to have your volume at the same level as other presenters.

Today’s reader shoe pic is great – I love the tassels. I got a kick out of Microsoft Word suggestion that they were sandals, however. Perhaps the folks at Microsoft need a shoe advisor? I’m available.