Turning a Big Event into a Community Experience

I’m honored to be a Social Media Ambassador for the fourth year at #HIMSS18. The SMA designation enables a group of 20 individuals across the Health IT spectrum to amplify industry perspectives, spotlight innovative technologies and forward-thinking people, and report on progress across the Health IT industry.

There’s an incredible amount of sharing, learning and leveraging that can happen at conferences, especially one like HIMSS. Networking continues to be one of my favorite reasons to attend. Education and learning are a close second. You’d be hard pressed to find the quality and quantity of information available in one venue, during any five-day period. #HIMSS18 offers more than 300 education sessions, thought leader sessions, and individual discussions with the brightest minds in Health IT. The conference provides a wealth of information to take back to our organizations, in the hope that actionable change will develop from community engagement.

Health IT optimization continues to be a personal focus of mine. How can we optimize the role-based user experience to align with workflow, business constraint and efficiency? I’ve written multiple blog posts highlighting IT inefficiency. One piece (“But… I Can’t Use IT”) focused on the heart of the design and development process, and how we can improve IT systems so they actually work for role-based users, within designated workflows, process and time constraint.

To align with this focus, I’m highlighting the #Engage4Health topic at #HIMSS18. The hashtag speaks to ways that providers, payers, researchers, and government officials can work together to change the Health IT paradigm. Industry best practice guidelines, cases studies, peer-to-peer learning, and expert insight into tech, tools, and strategy will be discussed and explored to further engage patients in their own care. It’s Moonshot thinking. Access to the best healthcare for anyone, from anywhere, at any time.

In addition to #Engage4Health, I look forward to #Connect2Health. This initiative highlights new and game-changing technologies that showcase the latest tech innovations and global initiatives to connect systems, people, and providers.

I’m taking part in several #Cybersecurity and Privacy Tweetups on Tuesday, March 6. Cybersecurity is a top concern for healthcare organizations in 2018. Staying informed and educated about cybersecurity means learning about cutting-edge technologies and how to best prepare your organization to defend against cyber adversaries.

#HIMSS18 reminds us that we are one large intellectual community, and by harnessing shared ideas, innovations and the chance to collaborate on projects, we can change the health IT paradigm to one that includes users, healthcare consumers, payers, providers and patients.

I look forward to meeting change makers, seeing friends and colleagues, and coming away energized and inspired by innovative ideas and connections. The conference is great, but to make the experience valuable, each of us needs to bring the content back to our individual communities, to folks who can drive actionable change in the Health IT industry.

I hope to see you there!