From HIMSS with Dr. Jayne 4/20/23

Wednesday opened with me feeling a little draggy, which wasn’t surprising since my trusty Garmin watch revealed that I had walked more than 13 miles the day before. Looking through my past HIMSS activity histories, that’s about par for an opening day and it wasn’t anything a couple of ibuprofen couldn’t resolve.

A change in the weather and my meeting plans led me to take the shuttle from the hotel to McCormick Place. It was a quick trip down Michigan Avenue, but a long and winding trip around the underbelly of the convention center as the bus reached its unloading area at Gate 20-something. I ignored the signage and just picked a random escalator that popped me up in the middle of the exhibit hall, which was much better than the “up down and all around” journey from yesterday.

I started the day with some casual meetings, both with former colleagues who are in various places in the industry, but whose spheres overlap my current one. Topics were far ranging and included rural health, clinical terminology, regulatory issues, and suggestions for good books to read. We’re all doing our best to keep up with what’s going on in healthcare and how it applies to our individual IT roles, but it’s daunting.

Still, it was good to catch up and get some advice from seasoned professionals that I trust. I’m also helping with some matchmaking magic, trying to introduce clinical informatics friends looking for work to vendor friends who might benefit from their knowledge.

From there, it was on to the exhibit hall, where the Ellkay team wins the “friendliest” title for the day by having people actually say good morning to those walking past.

I found the Puppy Park in the North exhibit hall. It was populated by some energetic doggos. The people playing with them all seemed to be having a good time.

Less exciting was the grime next to one of the pillars in the South exhibit hall, which was quite visible due to the lack of carpet. I was also annoyed by the large blue open-topped bins in the hall that were marked “recycle” but had no specialized drop slots for cans, paper, etc. which led to them being used as all-purpose trash cans. The only designated recycling bins that I could find that were being used as designed were in the lobbies by the escalators or over in the West building.

I was amazed to capture the bright shoes and even brighter suit all in one photo.

I had lunch at the CXO experience lounge in the West building, meeting some new CIO friends and learning about the projects their organizations are working on. The lounge was hopping and seating was at a premium – they definitely could have a larger area next year and still fill it. Top themes include chronic disease management, avoiding ransomware attacks, trying to meet behavioral health needs, and updating their telehealth strategies pending the end of the public health emergency declaration.

From there it was off to my annual booth crawl with Nordic Consulting’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Craig Joseph. We checked out the art at the Epic booth then started combing the aisles for things that were interesting or at least eye-catching. We noted only two multi-story booths this year. Nuance’s double-decker featured a theater complete with people waiting in line to get in. Pure Storage also had a two-level booth, but we missed their bourbon tasting.

From there, we headed to the Edifecs booth to check on the progress of their #WhatIRun message wall. It was filling up with messages of what attendees run at home and in their work lives. I give full credit to the person running their son’s den meetings. As someone who has spent a bit of time in the scouting world, I know how much work that can be. Mentions of the #WhatIRun hashtag trigger donations to BrightPink.org which is an advocacy organization for breast and ovarian cancer.

When hanging out with Craig Joseph, you never know where the conversation might go. Topics included adventures in specialty pharmacy, patient education solutions (triggered by a stop by the Healthwise booth to look at their new Healthwise Advise offering), the Mastodon social network, and more. We definitely went down the social media rabbit hole, and I introduced him to networking resources for the physician mom interested in casual (or not so casual) doomsday prepping – talk about your niche audience. We decided that in the event of a zombie apocalypse we would barter our physician skills for survival, so perhaps it’s time to practice our laceration repair and minor surgery skills.

After dropping him off at his booth, I needed a little rest and found a mysteriously large area in the South exhibit hall that had grass-colored carpeting and park benches. It seemed like an odd use of real estate in a high-traffic part of an exhibit hall that otherwise had inadequate seating areas. It made me wonder if a vendor had backed out and they were trying to fill the space, but I was grateful for a place to sit for a few minutes and find the last remaining ibuprofen at the bottom of my conference bag.

Matthew Holt and the team at First Databank sent their submission for best shoes.

Unfortunately for them, however, IMO dominated again with this submission, earning the company the “best all-around footwear of HIMSS23” championship title. I’m glad so many people have joined the challenge to find the best HIMSS shoes and receiving your pictures definitely puts a smile on my face. After two full days of exhibit hall adventures plus miles of walking on Monday, I’m ready to put my feet up, then pack my suitcase and get ready to head home.

If you’re at HIMSS, what has your favorite part of the conference been? Leave a comment or email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.