Today I had the chance to hear from Hal Wolf, President & CEO of HIMSS at a press event during the HIMSS 2021 conference in Las Vegas. It was great to be able to hear his thoughts and perspectives on the industry and some perspectives on how the HIMSS21 conference has gone so far.
Here’s a roundup of the most interesting health IT insights Hal Wolf shared at the event:
The question of breaking down silos is the biggest change management question healthcare has faced. Specialization creates silos. -Hal Wolf from @himss #HIMSS21
— John Lynn (@techguy) August 11, 2021
I really love how he framed interoperability as change management. We weren’t sharing data before and now we are being asked to do it. That’s a big change.
We have to take population health as a primary tenant. -Hal Wolf from @HIMSS #HIMSS21
— John Lynn (@techguy) August 11, 2021
Not hard to see how this comment was influenced heavily over the last 1.5 years. I don’t think we would have been talking about population health 2 years ago in this way. Hopefully, this talk translates into lasting action.
We have a serious threat in healthcare of people stepping away [nurses and doctors] -Hal Wolf from @HIMSS #HIMSS21
— John Lynn (@techguy) August 11, 2021
The threat of this becoming a massive problems grows every day as more and more clinicians get burnt out. Doesn’t seem like a tech topic until you consider that tech can contribute to and/or help to alleviate some of the burnout clinicians feel. Plus, even before the current challenges we had an issue of training enough doctors and nurses. Is tech going to be required to bridge that gap?
AI is not a magic bullet. There are no magic bullets. -Hal Wolf from @HIMSS #HIMSS21
— John Lynn (@techguy) August 11, 2021
Related to this is…If there was a magic bullet, we would have fired it long ago.
There’s a fundamental gap coming with the primary care available. Primary care is going to change and it’s going to have a ripple effect. -Hal Wolf from @HIMSS #HIMSS21
— John Lynn (@techguy) August 11, 2021
This comment came in response to a question about the growth of retail healthcare (Walmart, Dollar General, etc) and other options like Amazon Healthcare, and telehealth. Wolf also highlighted that most of these efforts focused on primary care. Thus, this is a topic you should be paying important attention to if you’re a healthcare organization. Then, he offered this insight.
Once primary care shifts to retail care, healthcare organizations are going to need to interoperate. -Hal Wolf from @HIMSS #himss21
— John Lynn (@techguy) August 11, 2021
I don’t know many people that don’t think primary care is at the core of value based care. If primary care moves outside your organization, you’re going to need to interoperate to have that data or you’re going to have a challenge really caring for that patient.
Wolf also addressed a few comments about what it’s been like at HIMSS 2021. Here’s a few of the things he shared:
Those that are here at #HIMSS21 are here for a purpose. They’re not hear to lolly gag around. That’s been good. -Hal Wolf from @HIMSS #HIMSS21
— John Lynn (@techguy) August 11, 2021
The biggest lesson learned is there is an appetite for both in person and digital. -Hal Wolf from @HIMSS #HIMSS21
— John Lynn (@techguy) August 11, 2021
What do you think of these ideas? Share your thoughts in the comments and on social media.
