From HIMSS with Dr. Jayne 4/19/23

Tuesday was a strong first day for the exhibit hall at HIMSS, and for the first time in a couple of years, I found myself wishing I had more time planned for the exhibit hall.

Today I had quite a few sessions and meetings on my dance card, with very little time to visit vendors. That means I have to cram it all in tomorrow since I’m leaving on Thursday. Even going back to pre-pandemic HIMSS meetings, the exhibit hall had been feeling a little lackluster, and then last year it felt like the conference was struggling to recover from COVID. I have some key things I need to get home for, so I decided to just do two days at HIMSS, but now I’m having some buyer’s remorse.

On the other hand, now that I think things through, it’s likely my first-day enthusiasm talking. By Thursday, it’s likely that the exhibit hall will have lost a lot of its energy, so we’ll have to see how tomorrow shapes up. I’ve got a couple of booth crawls planned for tomorrow that I’m really looking forward to.

Today was a strong day for shoe sightings, with Intelligent Medical Objects (IMO) bringing its absolute A game. Do note their contrast against the bare concrete floor, which was a prominent feature of the exhibit hall this year. Only the main aisles were carpeted, with the smaller aisles being left bare. That created not only tired feet, but trip hazards with the transition to the carpeting in the booths and with exposed service panels in the floors. One of my companions tripped over a taped-down wire that would have otherwise been under carpet and had to get ice for her ankle.

Stories on the reasoning behind the lack of carpet ranged from “wanting the exhibit hall to be more green” to “not wanting to pay the setup crews overtime.” Regardless, it created not only an aesthetically unpleasing environment, but also a dangerous one in places. I hope HIMSS rethinks its flooring decisions prior to the next iteration of the conference. I spent some time looking at the IMO Studio offering, and in particular their value set authoring tool, and I’m looking forward to being able to use some of the tools.

Edifecs brought back their #WhatIRun theme, but this year added some Dolly Parton to the mix. I wholly endorse their message. Life’s too short to be walking down the wrong road, for sure. From there I caught up with some friends at First Databank and then swung over to the Epic booth, which feels a little smaller than in past years, but it was still packed. Even dropping by later in the day it remained full, so I’ll try to say hi to my friends there tomorrow.

I attended a HIMSS corporate focus group today. Although I really enjoyed the discussion, the setup of the room was less than ideal, with rows of seats behind the main U-shaped table that led to awkward turning around by those who were seated in front of the extra rows. There were plenty of open seats at the table, so I wish the facilitator had asked those in the seats to move up with the rest of us, but it was a missed opportunity. There was also a loud conversation going on in the service corridor behind the focus group room and it was quite distracting.

The focus group included a box lunch with a salad option, which was much appreciated since finding decent food choices at HIMSS is often a challenge. I’ve been to a number of HIMSS focus groups over the years and this one was located deep within the bowels of the convention center, in an area of Level 1 that I could only find by going up two escalators, across the building, and back down to Level 1. Little did I know that I’d have to make that trek again at the end of the day when I decided the bus was a better option back to my hotel than my tired feet.

A cooler full of free beer in the middle of the morning is always an attention getter.

My favorite women’s shoes of the day were cute and springy yet comfortable. I think they were described as “like walking on clouds,” which is always appreciated on a day when you might be walking more than a couple of miles.

The “Most Engaging Booth Staff” award of the day goes to Relatient, whose staff was not only friendly, but quickly figured out which of their solutions might be useful to a CMIO and doubled down on it to gather my interest. Kudos to the rep who explained the complexities of orthopedic surgery scheduling decision trees like a pro. I also liked the texture of their mossy green backdrop, which was a nice counterpoint to the previously mentioned bare concrete throughout the exhibit hall.

After a brief nap on the bus back to my hotel, I put my feet up for a few minutes then was off to a regional dinner at a legendary steakhouse. The bone-in pork chop did not disappoint, and I met some new friends and had great conversations, which is what HIMSS is really all about. I’m looking forward to a big day tomorrow, starting with a walking meeting in Grant Park. The weather is looking promising, and I plan to meet up with a couple of my vendors, so it should be a good day.

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