Viewpoint

Back in October of last year, I wrote an editorial titled “Technology is here to help us … right?” It was inspired by a server move that left us – how do I put this? – technologically … um … unsatisfied.

Since then, I’ve kept my feelings bottled up inside. Being a musician, I typically take frustrations out on my guitar. But for this gig, it’s more important that I write a letter:

Dear technology,
We need to talk.
I’d love to say that all the wrongs have been righted, that you’ve apologized and that we’ve reunited in a torrid love affair that is making all the other trade magazines jealous.
But I’d be lying.
It’s time we cleared the air.
It’s time for you to stop pretending, technology. Stop pretending you’re there for us when sometimes you’re not even available to host the Web site or share industry news with our friends.
You didn’t think I’d notice when your increased bandwidth allowed you to perform more tasks in the background. But it also gave you more excuses to not be available.
Stop acting like it didn’t hurt when you started allowing e-mails from those Russian “brides” into my in box when they clearly had nothing but SPAM on their minds. What about us? I thought you were supposed to make our lives easier.
I wish you all the best, technology, but this just isn’t working out.

Fact is, we all have a love-hate relationship with technology. And with all of the aggravation it brings on a daily basis, it’s easy to forget that technology allows us to regularly perform feats that just a few decades ago would have been called miraculous; indeed, the stuff dreams were made of.

As advancing technology allows interfaces to simplify, the back-end, often-behind-the-scenes processes are growing more and more complex. And if relatively elementary server and e-mail systems can break down (as in the above, mostly tongue-in-cheek missive), the myriad ways complex healthcare IT solutions can malfunction boggles the mind.

All this underscores the need for the ongoing exchange of information between vendor and end-user that Health Management Technology can provide.

To that end, this month we present a special issue focusing on cutting-edge technology; specifically, handheld devices and how they are changing the healthcare IT landscape.

Enjoy the magazine. And, until next time, here’s wishing you good healthcare IT.

For a few days every year, at least, my fitness plan is set. No, I didn’t join a gym; nor did I purchase a treadmill or one of Tony Little’s Gazelles. I simply go to HIMSS.

In fact, I recently returned from Orlando, where HMT attended the aforementioned annual HIMSS conference, the Big Kahuna of healthcare IT trade shows.

I spent three days walking many, many miles around the mammoth exhibition hall. Just about every half-hour, I had a meeting with a different vendor – usually at their booth. It was a great deal of work, especially when my best-laid plans to keep meetings all within a few hundred yards of each other fell through, and I found myself moving at top speed from one end of the hall to the other to make my next appointment. As it turns out, it was well worth it, though, as I had sit-down (or stand-up; sometimes they didn’t provide chairs) dialogue with about 40 companies and some of their end users.

As I’ve stated here previously, HIMSS is big. It’s really big. To say that it’s a huge undertaking would be an understatement.

I heard that the exhibition area alone was the length of seven football fields. (I was unable to corroborate this, but my aching feet believe this to be true.)
During my three days at HIMSS, I picked up on a few things:

Trend: proactive care management. (I hear you laughing, Europe, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and parts of Asia. So we’re a little slow.)

Trend: “Vendor neutral,” which was everywhere at last year’s show, has morphed into “vendor agnostic.” I’m not sure why, but “vendor neutral” is now, apparently, verboten. This evoked a memory remnant from a past HIMSS, where one vendor told me “there is no such thing as vendor neutral.” Perhaps that has something to do with the term’s downfall. Funny thing is some people are already raising a stink about “vendor agnostic,” saying that it has “negative religious implications.”

One area that seemed to be on the back burner at last year’s HIMSS that was omnipresent at this year’s conference: security. In fact, after HIMSS10, we mentioned right in this very column we thought it was a mistake that security was not a more top-of-mind issue, and it’s even more important now with the explosion of mobile devices and apps.

A record-breaking 31,225 attendees were present, almost all of them armed with smart phones; many attempted – unsuccessfully – to navigate the crowd while paying all of their attention to their phones and none to what was in front of them.

All in all, HIMSS was a great success. I met many people, learned many things. And I got some exercise.

Did you ever get the feeling that no one even looks at the reams of paperwork we’re forced to fill out each and every time we visit a medical facility?

See if this scenario sounds familiar:

You enter your doctor’s office, approach the glass window, greet the people behind the counter, sign in and receive a clipboard filled with several sheets for you to fill out and a pen that works intermittently, at best.

Among the questions asked are the same things you filled out the last time you visited your doctor’s office, and every time before that. These include: address, phone number, emergency contact, current medications, allergies and the reason you are there.

You dutifully fill out all the paperwork – again – and take your place in the crowded waiting room, competing with the other patrons for a four-year-old Mademoiselle magazine that you normally wouldn’t be caught dead reading.
You wait for a good hour past your appointment time – your blood pressure rising with each minute you are made to wait – and finally receive the call you’ve been waiting for.

In my case, I hear, “Phillup Call-pass?” Close enough.

The nurse asks how you’re doing. You try to be nice, but you’re thinking to yourself, “How do you think I’m doing!? My appointment was an hour ago!” (In no other industry would this inability to keep appointments be deemed acceptable, let alone the rule.)

You are weighed. Your blood pressure is taken. (“It’s a little high.” “Really? I wonder why that could be.”) Then the nurse proceeds to ask all of the questions you just answered while filling out the reams of paperwork in the waiting room; she ends with, “Why are you here today?” You dutifully and patiently answer all queries. Again.

You then are left alone in the examination room to wait some more. It is at this point you realize that you have merely graduated to a private waiting room without even four-year-old magazines to entertain you as you wait for the elusive doctor, who clearly isn’t very good at keeping appointments.

When the doctor finally does grace you with his presence, he looks through a plethora of handwritten notes and asks, “Why are you here today?”

This evoked a memory remnant of an editorial from several years ago by a former editor of HMT, who was bemoaning the archaic state of medical records when she went with a friend to a veterinarian’s office. For Fido, everything was state of the art, fully computerized and smooth as silk. Appointment times were kept, all data was completely electronic and paperless and Fido’s owner was given an itemized bill at the time of services.

I think the next time I need medical attention, I may try the canine hospital down the street …

Enjoy the magazine. Until next time, here’s wishing you good healthcare IT.

HIMSS will celebrate its 50^th year in style at the HIMSS11 Conference and Exhibition, to be held in Orlando later this month (Feb. 20-24 at the Orange County Convention Center).

Founded in 1961, HIMSS is a not-for-profit organization on a mission to lead healthcare transformation through the effective use of health information technology (IT). Over the past half-century, the annual HIMSS conference has evolved to become the largest tradeshow in the healthcare IT industry.

Most of my career prior to 2009 was spent in the newspaper business; in fact, prior to attending last year’s HIMSS10 show in Atlanta, I was a HIMSS virgin. And let me tell you, jumping into HIMSS as your first healthcare IT tradeshow is like being thrown into the deep end of the pool without a swimming noodle!

I was completely blown away by the sheer magnitude of the show. It’s big … really big, and I must confess to experiencing a bit of a sensory overload; there are bright colors, noises, booths and people – most moving quickly and purposefully – in every direction. Vendor displays range from the simple: a small booth with a couple monitor screens; to the sublime: a two-story behemoth – complete with a dozen state-of-the-art big-screen flat panels and private meeting rooms – hauled in and built within the exhibition hall.

Having attended several tradeshows since – both big and small – there is really no comparison. Don’t get me wrong, there are many solid tradeshows in the healthcare IT space. But when it comes to the number of vendors, the sheer volume of attendees and the level of excitement of everyone involved, HIMSS is truly matchless.

According to Shauna Schuda, senior account executive at Public Communications Inc., HIMSS11 will have approximately 900 vendors covering more than 380,000 square feet of exhibit space. The number of registrants from hospitals and health networks has increased by 28 percent, and at seven weeks out from the conference opening, total professional registration was outpacing last year’s registration by 30 percent. “Of these registrants, we have seen a jump in the C-suite space of 12 percent, with especially huge gains in CMIOs and CNIOs,” Schuda says. “HIMSS attendance is currently up 25 percent overall against 2010.”

One way HIMSS is celebrating its 50^th anniversary is by honoring 50 individuals with the 50 in 50 Award for memorable achievements in the field of healthcare IT. Ten individuals are recognized for each of the five decades since the founding of the organization. Nominations opened in November 2010; recipients will be recognized at HIMSS11.

Another way HIMSS is acknowledging the big 5-0 is by adding two new items to the show: the Social Media Center and the RFID and RTLS Showcase.

Finally, HIMSS11 features more than 400 education sessions, the always-popular HIMSS Interoperability Showcase and keynote speakers including Michael J. Fox and DHS national health IT coordinator David Blumenthal.

See you in Orlando!