Best Ideas and Brightest Minds in Health IT Come Together Again at Annual HIMSS
The recent Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference treated attendees to a keynote from the Chair, President, and CEO of IBM, Ginni Rometty, who asserted that artificial intelligence and cognitive computing are “mainstream and here.” We were also reminded of our shared responsibility for the ownership of data management and security practices that ensure proper guidance of new technologies in an “ethical and enduring” way.
I returned home last week after spending four days at the annual Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in Orlando, Florida. As testimony to the magnitude of this event, it is held in two locations — Orlando and Las Vegas. Apparently, these are the only two venues that can continue to accommodate the sheer number of attendees and vendors that spend anywhere from one to seven days at the national event.
The HIMSS keynote on Monday morning is the official kickoff for the event. This year’s keynote was delivered by Ginni Rometty, Chair, President, and CEO of IBM. Ms. Rometty shared her thoughts on how artificial intelligence and cognitive computing are “mainstream and here.” She also spoke about data management, security, and a responsibility we must own to ensure that we guide new technologies in an “ethical and enduring” way.
Echoing what she considers the foundation of Healthcare Information Technology, she suggested it all comes down to three things:
- Cloud Platform
- Data Platform
- Artificial Intelligence
She concluded by offering three important tenets that we must all strive for to guarantee the future success of healthcare: purpose, transparency, and skill. Judging from the applause and energy of the audience, there was no doubt that her words were inspirational and impressive.
This was my eighth consecutive year attending this national conference, and there’s always an abundance of things to keep me busy. I highly recommend and encourage you to think about attending. Imagine an event where everything you’ve dedicated your life and career to is all under one roof with instant access to like-minded industry professionals all there for engaged discussion, meaningful collaboration, and social activities. That’s what HIMSS is to the Health IT practitioner.
Hundreds of breakout sessions cover all the major core and emerging topics such as Cybersecurity and Privacy, IT Infrastructure, HIT Standards, Medical Device Integration, Genomics and Precision Medicine, HIE, and Interoperability and Data Access, just to name a few.
The Women in HealthIT group sponsors special sessions and includes some of the most respected names of the leading women in healthcare IT from the organizations that they represent. This group is consistently one of the most active in exploring trends in healthcare technology.
I spent many hours every day on the exhibition floor, speaking with enthusiastic representatives from various companies who provide interesting solutions for everything from data management and storage (EMC/Dell, Pure Storage) to enterprise-level cloud solutions (Nutanix, Cisco Spark), Virtualization (VMware, Citrix), and, of course, business continuity, disaster recovery, and data replication (Zerto).
I am always impressed by what’s truly possible with a valued healthcare technology service provider. The security, functionality, and future viability of the entire healthcare industry is dependent on such providers. With so much of the country’s Health IT streamlining and going to the cloud, today more than ever, the right strategic partnerships are vital to the success of healthcare organizations of any size.
I am truly convinced, as I am every year when I leave HIMSS, that the future of healthcare has never been brighter.