This year we thought we’d try something new at HIMSS 2021. We’ll continue doing our regular coverage of topics we find interesting and useful for the Healthcare IT Today community. Plus, we’ll be doing a number of video interviews which will go out on our Healthcare IT Today Interviews podcast. However, we thought it would be interesting for a day to add small updates throughout the day from the things we hear and see.
What’s that mean for you? You can bookmark this article and refresh throughout the day to get the latest updates and ideas heard and seen at HIMSS. Hopefully, this is a nice view into the day of a press person at HIMSS.
Note: Be sure to check out Colin’s #HIMSS21 updates as well.
Breakfast Update: Long lines at the Starbucks in Palazzo. No surprise there that people need their coffee to get them started on the long days at HIMSS.
Healthcare IT Today Video Setup: It’s great working with real video professionals to have an amazing setup like this for the video interviews we’re doing. Check out our setup.
First Video: We’re kicking off the day with HCTec and Qure4u to talk about virtual care. Is telehealth going to become just a feature?
Virtual Care Insight from HCTec and Qure4u: Don’t underestimate the patient support piece needed to make virtual care a reality.
Women in Health IT Insight: Talking with Joy Rios, Co-founder of Chirpy Bird Consulting and Founder of the HIT Like a Girl Podcast, she shared how at many events there’s an unconscious bias she sees where various aspects cater to men vs women. We need to sometimes take a step back and understand the experience women would have at the event. With that said, she’s starting to see a shift in the culture where women are more willing to collaborate with each other. I also talked with her about a woman I met who I asked to be on our podcast and the woman replied, “I don’t have anything to share.” Yet, I knew she had a story to tell and yet she felt like what she had to say wasn’t important. This is precisely part of the shift that needs to happen.
RPM Platform Insight: Talking with Lucienne Ide, MD, PhD Founder and CEO at Rimidi shared, “RPM is the means, not the end. It’s about wholistic care delivery.”
Scrubs Tracking Technology: In one of those things you didn’t realize was a problem, scrubs management now has technology making a difference. Positek RFID, a subsidiary of Fujitsu has put an RFID in scrubs along with a cabinet that can manage who is checking out the scrubs and when they return them. I’ll cover it in more detail later, but it reduces the number of scrubs needed and reduces the number of “lost” scrubs.
Look at Precision Medicine: Talking with Sirj Gowami, PhD, CEO at InsightRx shared that “We need to not just focus on identifying the right drug for the right patient based on their genomic markers, but we need to leverage everything we know about the patient to personalize the dosage as well.”
Overheard at HIMSS Exhibit Hall:
Attendee #1: Look at that chart, it goes up and to the right.
Attendee #2: Are there any charts here that don’t do that?
Attendee #3: You know why that chart goes like that? Because it was made by marketing.
Now I’m searching for a chart that doesn’t just go up and to the right.
Synthetic Data Insight: Talking with Daniel Blumenthal, VP Strategy at MDClone, he shared, “Synthetic data can get you much further than you think. Many thought that it was only a test space, but health systems and life science companies are learning that synthetic data could possibly get you all the way there or at least from 0-90% of the way to meaningful insights that will impact care.”
Healthcare AI Insight: Talking with Lirio, they highlighted how when dealing with engagement with patients in real time, it’s not happening in a box. You can’t just restart. The patient keeps changing and even your messaging and engagement with them is influencing them so they may react differently the next time. Any behavioral science solution in a real world environment has to take into account the constantly changing patients.
Ice Cream: Thanks to Intersystems for the ice cream. Great way to finish my time on the HIMSS 2021 exhibit floor.
More updates coming soon…
