Learning to Navigate the HIT World

The world of healthcare IT is ever evolving and changing.  It is hard to explain the many acronyms and terminology to people who are not in healthcare IT.  With rapid changes and new government programs, we may all fall behind in our knowledge.  To the rescue comes the HIMSS11 – Healthcare IT Conference and Exhibition in Orlando, FL from February 20-24, 2011.  It is a great way to network, gather the latest information on the HIT industry and if you need to, look for another job.

This year HIMSS has even added a Career tab to their main conference page with several new career development sessions, including a Career Services Pavilion with more than ten invited guest speakers on all topics of HIT career development and management.  Check out the ten Education Sessions specifically called Career Development Sessions.  There are more ways than ever to be educated on advancing your HIT career.

Navigating the HIT world to me involves looking at trends.  Back in 2001 at the HIMSS Annual Conference and Exhibition, there were only about 20 physicians speaking in the educations sessions and no physician IT symposium.  Now ten years later in 2011, there are almost 60 physicians participating as speakers, as well as a pre-conference symposia Physicians’ IT Symposium: Successes and Scars in Achieving Meaningful Use session, and the  Physician Executive Forum.   Other signs of growth and change include, in 2001, CHIME held a pre-conference session at HIMSS, but now they are an official Conference Collaborator.  In 2001, there were less than 500 exhibitors, while this year there are over 900.

If you can’t attend HIMSS this year, there are many virtual ways to catch up on recent trends in the HIT industry.  Check out the newly published information regarding CMIOs and physicians in IT, in the recent SRA – 2011 CMIO-Physician-IT-Survey-Report.  Here are a few facts from the study:

• 83% view Meaningful Use as the key trend impacting their role and the delivery of healthcare
• Average base salary was $273,201 and average total compensation was $307,390
• 93% view their role as Informatics Leader
• 27% report to the Chief Information Officer, 25% report to the Chief Medical Officer, 15% report to the Chief Executive Officer
• 9% want to be a CIO

If statewide HIE  initiatives are of interest, you may want to check a recent presentation given by Pat Cunningham, the current Illinois Chief Technology Officer.  Her presentation given in December at the University of Illinois-Chicago was titled Developments in Health Information Exchange in Illinois.  It was helpful in explaining the statewide strategy to meet Meaningful Use and the statewide HIE high level timeline.

So whatever your method of navigating the ever growing mountain of HIT information, I wish you good luck and happy sailing.