From HIMSS 4/20/23

Tell me without telling me that today is the last exhibit hall day of HIMSS23.

Today is also when all of the previously defended booth swag is dumped out on the table for anyone to take (even other vendors) to avoid dragging it back home, which is how I ended up with socks from document management vendor Vasion, whose booth person urged me to take one small step to reduce his two suitcases full of them to a manageable number. I also had a nice conversation with folks from Amazon S3 data recovery vendor Clumio, who wanted to hand off one of their bags that I now realize is actually quite nice.

Of course I had to scan the QR code on the HIMSS bus window. It went to a website that described how to get out in an emergency. I think I would find a way out more quickly, approved or my own, than reading a website or watching a video.

It wouldn’t be a HIMSS conference without the always-entertaining Magic Boy in the booth of Hyland, although I don’t think he was involved with the company’s pre-conference magic trick of making 1,000 employees disappear.

I don’t know how many takers Jeron Electronic Systems got for its factory tours, but I thought the offer was smart. The family-run business makes nurse call and other healthcare communications systems right here in the Chicago area, with no supply chain product delays.

I went by the Ellkay booth many times and not only were employees paying heads-up attention, I was greeted every time. I didn’t eat anything but booth snacks all day until late afternoon all this week, so I got through Day 1 purely on their honey-caramel popcorn.

Hybrid infrastructure vendor Element Critical provided a great “Live Lucky” hat and fun conversation. 

Today was goodbye group photo day, or video in the case of Clearsense. They had a sharp-looking booth. The quick video, which popped up on LinkedIn, is a super idea.

This observation is supportive even though it might sound critical, but for folks in the startup area’s mini-booths, HIMSS23 could have been your best chance of the year to find prospects, partners, investors, and employees. I know it’s hard to remain alert, make eye contact, and initiate friendly conversation versus staring at your phone or conversing with your co-worker, but to be here otherwise doesn’t accomplish much. If your space holds two people, one of them should be someone who can confidently and energetically draw people in. I walked through the startup area several times and nobody seemed all that interested in initiating a conversation. If you’re going to be there anyway, take advantage of the foot traffic just to shoot the breeze with whoever walks by if nothing else.

These guys from Rocket.chat didn’t get a great booth location as a first-time exhibitor, but they were friendly and positive. The company’s HIPAA-ready messaging app supports communication with patients, colleagues, and vendors. They offer a free self-hosted team collaboration version.

The reps from digital transformation services vendor Cardinal Integrated earned our “Tiny Booth but Great People” award, as the person on the left admirably worked the perimeter to cheerfully engage passersby and her colleagues were quick to join in.

The rep at first-time exhibitor Solid, which offers public safety communications technology, was outgoing, informative, and energetic despite light foot traffic and reps in neighboring booths being lost in phoneland. The company offers a guide to improving poor cell service to support BYOD and bandwidth for IoT and 5G.

The friendly, sequined folks at Raleigh, NC-based Bandwidth were happy to describe the company’s messaging, voice, and emergency telecom platform.

Doximity provided today’s lunch. Their cupcake bites are like finger-scooping cake batter from the bowl, then repeating with the icing before shoving it home.

Avadin, which sells solutions for senior care agencies, uses AI – and now, apparently, ChatGPT – to listen for “help me” requests, monitor for falls, assess mood, and allow remote check-in.

I was initially a bit put off by HIMSS turning its tweeting over to someone who is actually good at it instead of old-school stuffy, but I’ve grown to like it.

Where have all the vendor puffer vests gone? Gone to Goodwill, all but one.

Conversations Overheard

According to one executive, the respective CEOs of CHIME and HIMSS never got along all that well after Hal Wolf took over at HIMSS, but it was the refusal of HIMSS to cancel the 2020 conference until the last minute that sent CHIME off to form the competing ViVE conference with HLTH.

I overhead high-level executives of two significant companies saying that HIMSS23 has been a good conference for them, but also expressing delighted surprise at how much business they expect to generate from the ViVE conference. Both reported that in both conferences, their booths were packed, their scheduled events were waitlisted, and even casual booth-lookers ended up being significant decision-influencers who will likely result in new business. Both said that the secret is in booking meetings long before the conference starts, guaranteeing that the booth will generate ROI no matter what.

Someone commented that unlike HIMSS, ViVE provided water bottles and food freely to all attendees. However, those water bottles reportedly cost ViVE $500,000.

I overheard from two different executives that unlike HIMSS, repping the company at ViVE didn’t seem like actually working.

Someone described how the HIMSS conference has changed in the last 20 years by citing similarly sized gaudy booths back in the day, but with provocatively clad booth staff, jugglers, and booths that were turned into near restaurants with endless trays of deli food. It was also recalled how once upon a time HIMSS closed the exhibit hall during education sessions. I overheard one person lamenting the demise of HIStalkapalooza, which reminded me that I’m staying near the best place that we ever had it at the House of Blues Chicago. That also reminds me that I have recaps of all HIMSS conferences and HIStalkapaloozas starting at 2008 on the site, and although the earlier ones disappeared with a platform change in 2007, it’s a pretty engrossing memory lane of trends, companies, and people that in some cases are no longer with us.

A rep eating lunch was telling someone how surprised he was that Microsoft has suddenly starting dominating healthcare with Azure, its Nuance acquisition, and now its work with generative AI.

A vendor executive said they personally pledged to remain visible in their booth any time the exhibit hall is open instead of retreating to conference rooms or off-campus lunches.

Folks were speculating whether HIMSS will admit that the “no-carpet HIMSS23” was an mistake that will be corrected next year. I heard more people speculating that HIMSS didn’t want to pay overtime for carpet installation and decided to skip it with an unrelated excuse. One vendor said they were happy to have had their booth setup finished before the weekend, when overtime rates became exorbitant.

News

HCA Healthcare is piloting Augmedix’s ambient medical documentation system and has invested in the company in a $12 million funding round. AUGX shares jumped 90% on the news, valuing the company at $128 million. It went public in a SPAC-like reverse merger in 2020, with shares down 15% since their first day of trading.