Another HIMSS has come and gone; another year of conversations with industry leaders as part of our annual HIMSS Highlights. This year’s conference coincided with the 10 year anniversary of the passing of the HITECH Act in February of 2009, and 10 years since Roberta Mullin and I launched our first website, HITECHAnswers.net.
Over the years, the theme of HIMSS has changed, the trending topics too. In many of my HIMSS Highlights this year I get off track, not even waxing poetically, just rambling and stumbling down memory lane of a decade of HITECH. My husband finds this charming; I suspect many of our HealthcareNOW listeners may find it annoying. Sorry about that – it is far too late for me change.
Conference taglines, trends, Carol-rambles, and history aside, the one constant for me through the years is that I always walk away with my eyes opened a little wider, and my knowledge base expanded just a bit more, as the industry leaders I talk to share their insights.
Here are the conversations that took me out of my HIMSS shiny new technology glow, giving me, instead, a reality check on some of the most pressing challenges we face in healthcare. In all of these conversations, you can hear the passion – and the pain – as they discuss the issue they hope their respective technology companies hope to solve.
Matt Sappern, CEO of PeriGen, who discusses the infant mortality crisis we are facing in the U.S. Matt points out that it is safer having a baby in Turkey than here, and that according to the CDC, 60% of all bad outcomes are preventable.
Dr. Bridget Duffy, CMO for Vocera Communications talking about another crisis in healthcare – burnout among physicians and nurses including an appalling stat: 1 million people this year will lose their provider not to retirement but to suicide.
Matt Cox, Chief Marketing Director of Lumeris discusses how collectively as an industry, it is imperative we stop thinking about risk and think around outcomes. He shares the very personal story of his son who has been battling leukemia for two years and why as a parent, loved one, or caretaker, outcomes are everything.
Cam Deemer, President of DrFirst, who discusses the company’s role in educating both providers and patients on prescription price transparency, sharing an example of his own mother, who took an expensive eye medication that she couldn’t really afford, but filled the prescription anyway because it was the drug prescribed by her physician. He also talks about the work DrFirst is doing on the opioid addiction crisis.
