HIMSS24 Conference Wrap: Keith Duemling Says Recent Events Prove Cyber Warrants Main Stage Billing

Keith Duemling, Senior Director of Cybersecurity Technology Protection, Cleveland Clinic

There’s an old parenting saying, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Of course, it’s meant to get parents off the hook for not demonstrating the behavior they want emulated. Unfortunately, it rarely works, as the disconnect between talk and action isn’t lost on the little ones. When it comes to recent conferences, some have cited a disconnect between saying cyber is as important as anything else and showing that’s the case by bringing security-related talks to the main stage. In fact, both shows had cyber theaters or pavilions that were a tad off the beaten path. This dynamic was not lost on Keith Duemling, Senior Director of Cybersecurity Technology Protection, Cleveland Clinic, who said the solution isn’t putting the two side by side, but weaving cyber presentations into the main stage content. In this interview with healthsystemCIO Founder & Editor-in-Chief Anthony Guerra, Duemling also discusses how the shows treated provider executives, and his conference plans for the future.

LISTEN HERE USING THE PLAYER BELOW OR SUBSCRIBE THROUGH YOUR FAVORITE PODCASTING SERVICE.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:13 — 11.8MB)

Bold Statements

I was trying to think of an analogy that would be helpful in comparing the two. I came up with the idea that ViVE felt like the holidays with your immediate family, where you’re focused on those intimate connections and opportunities to really reminisce; and HIMSS felt like holidays with the entire extended family; great to see everyone, catching up with people you’ve not seen before, learning about those changes that have happened.

I think one of the challenges for cyber at any type of multidisciplinary conference is – just like technology in general 20 years ago – how do you not get put over on the side, as in, ‘That’s the place over there where the cyber people gather,’ and everybody else goes (to the main area) for their other things.

There’s always a healthy amount of communication and invitations and things like that. But it felt very refined, and it was better. If you said, ‘I’m not available or please put me as tentative,’ you were respected, and I didn’t feel like I had to hide my badge when I was walking through the solution provider hall for fear of being chased down into a booth or something like that.

Anthony: Welcome to healthsystemCIO’s HIMSS Wrap-up interview with Keith Duemling, Senior Director of Cybersecurity Technology Protection with the Cleveland Clinic. I’m Anthony Guerra, Founder and Editor-in-Chief. Keith, thanks for joining me.

Keith: Great to be here, Anthony. Thank you for the opportunity.

Anthony: I know you went to ViVE and HIMSS. What were your impressions, specifically of HIMSS?

Keith: Well, I appreciate the question. Yes, I’m recovering from attending both conferences, both great experiences but as you can imagine, whirlwind experiences. To your questions, I think without showing exactly my age, I’ve probably been to at least 10 of the HIMSS conferences, probably like most people, the vast majority pre-Covid. I’ve definitely seen the conference evolve over those years, especially with Covid being a major point of evolution for pretty much everything in society.

Anthony: Your thoughts? What was your experience this year? Do you think this is on the upswing, this is on the downswing? Just any impressions on how the conference is trending?

Keith: I think HIMSS is definitely on the upswing, in my opinion. It has a very expansive program. You really have to be strategic on how you approach it because it can be overwhelming if you’re not very intentional. I think very early on in my career, I didn’t necessary approach it with that understanding and it was easy to get overwhelmed. But I definitely see a lot of the excitement, the participation, that I’ve seen in years passed and it still continues to be a really valuable experience for the entirety of the healthcare technology industry.

Anthony: How do you compare HIMSS and ViVE specifically around cyber?

Keith: I think both shows offer a lot of opportunities from a cyber standpoint. ViVE offers that opportunity to work really closely and collaborate and have discussions with CIOs and other technology leaders. Whereas, HIMSS gives you that, plus an opportunity to be exposed to a lot of different healthcare disciplines outside of technology, the institutes, the caregivers that are right there in the field providing healthcare. They’re there, and you are able to see what they’re facing, what direction healthcare is headed in.

I think coming into this interview I was trying to think of an analogy that would be helpful in comparing the two. I came up with the idea that ViVE felt like the holidays with your immediate family, where you’re focused on those intimate connections and opportunities to really reminisce; and HIMSS felt like holidays with the entire extended family, great to see everyone, catching up with people you’ve not seen before, learning about those changes that have happened. They were both very valuable experiences, and both challenging, in different ways. I will say that the proximity of the two conferences together can be somewhat challenging for individuals, both from a logistics and a cost standpoint. I’m sure that both conferences are receiving feedback that might help in some way for future instances.

Anthony: You mentioned the caregivers at HIMSS. When I was preparing for the conference, I went through the entire speakers’ list, in terms of those who are from healthcare provider organizations. There were a tremendous amount of clinical folks, CMIOs and those type of folks at HIMSS. They were going to speak at HIMSS. You mentioned caregivers, is that what you mean?

Keith: Yes, that’s what I mean. You have individuals in those other disciplines, the CMIOs, the chief nursing officers, those individuals I think were a little bit more prevalent at HIMSS than what I saw at ViVE, just like you saw when you analyzed the speakers’ list.

Anthony: Cyber, you felt they both had good cyber representation?

Keith: I think they both had good cyber representation. I think one of the challenges for cyber at any type of multidisciplinary conference is – just like technology in general 20 years ago – how do you not get put over on the side, as in, ‘That’s the place over there where the cyber people gather,’ and everybody else goes (to the main area) for their other things.

I think both conferences have made a lot of strides over the years to integrate it, but there’s still work to be done. Again, it goes back to that classic, ‘get out of the comfort zone technology,’ and get into the conversations with the business, speaking to the business. I know that’s a cliché term, but it really is something that we have to continue figuring out – how does cyber obtain that relevancy and retain that relevancy in those conversations.

Anthony: Someone else I spoke with made the same point about cyber being off to the side. What do you want the messaging back to the conference organizers to be?

Keith: I think that’s a tough one because organizing conferences is not my forte at this point. But I would say that, yes, there’s a physical placement challenge that has to be overcome. When you go to a concert or a large event like that, there’s the main stage and then there’s the second stage which is sometimes off to the corner and over by concessions. You have some really great performers that are there that unfortunately aren’t going to get the same exposure because they’re nowhere near the main stage.

I don’t think we put the two stages next to each other. I think we find a way to interweave the program more and probably market the program differently so that CIOs, CMIOs, and chief nursing officers understand how the content is relevant to them. I think the last month has really been a wakeup call for the industry to show that cyber events can quickly become things that are really disruptive to areas of healthcare that maybe once were thought to be safe from it, or where they didn’t see that unfortunately painful connection that comes with cyber and some of the other disciplines like revenue cycle and pharmaceuticals and things like that.

Anthony: At both shows, people were talking about Change Healthcare around cyber, and then AI. Is there anything else you noticed people chatting about?

Keith: I think definitely resiliency was the term we heard, and you mentioned Change, AI, and generative AI, is continuing to be a dominating topic. Interoperability has again been a dominating topic. How do you get these systems talking to each other in a way that improves the clinical experience and the outcomes? I think we’ve heard this one a lot, but I’ve seen it a lot more in the last couple of years and I attribute it to Covid. Innovation and accelerating how we used technology to really change how we define healthcare; that seems to have picked up a lot as well.

At both conferences, there were companies putting out innovative solutions. We heard about healthcare providers doing things that they’ve never done before around hospital at home, things of that nature. AI dominates the innovation conversation, but not all innovation is AI. I think that is going to be one of the ways we solve some of these serious healthcare challenges as we invent a new, better version of healthcare, in addition to addressing the staffing problems and the resiliency problems and all those other challenges. Some of that is going to be through fixing and some of that is going to be through invention.

Anthony: As an executive, there is this concept of safe spaces, and I don’t mean that in a the common political way that people can talk about safe spaces. (laughing)

Keith: Let’s keep politics out this. (laughing)

Anthony: Yes, definitely. I mean safe spaces for provider IT executives, 90% of the people at the show are there to sell, 10% are there are potential buyers. You happen to be one of those. How did they do with giving you a safe space?

Keith: You bring up a good point. I think in our previous conversation I was a little bit pessimistic about the experience that I would have with the different solution providers, but I’m happy to say I think I was wrong, in the sense that I’ve seen a lot of improvement, especially in these two conferences. There seemed like the boundary and the etiquette was there. Maybe I’m dooming myself for future experiences, but the etiquette seemed to have improved.

I also think that both conferences had a hosted solution, hosted buyer program, whatever you call it. I participated in both of those for the conferences, and they were both very well done and provided, I think, another structured mechanism for solution providers and buyers to connect, exchange information and ideas, but not have it evolve into an experience where you’re walking down an aisle and being assaulted in different booths and things like that. I guess that’s a long way of saying it’s getting better and I hope that it will continue to get better, because I think people realized you can’t just go in 100% sales-focused and expect positive outcomes. Because that, unfortunately, turns people off.

Anthony: Right, right. Very good. Final question, I’ve got to frame this right. If you were not speaking at either show, would you go to either, both or neither next year? Because I think if you’re invited to speak, it changes the whole equation for someone potentially attending a conference. If you’re not speaking, then it’s got to rely on a lot of other value. Any thoughts there?

Keith: Yes, that is a great question. That’s a tough one to think about. If I were not speaking at both of them, I would probably have to really go through an analysis to figure out which one I would put my energy behind, both from a time and resourcing standpoint.

Both conferences require a significant investment from your parent organization, and every dollar is a dollar that could be used somewhere else in the system to care for patients, so you’ve always got to make those weighted decisions. It’s easier when you’re speaking at both because the finances change a little bit. If I wasn’t speaking at both, then I would probably have to go through that process of picking one or the other.

Anthony: Perfect. That’s really interesting. It makes a lot of sense. Keith, fantastic, I enjoyed this very much. We will see how the conference world evolves. Thank you.

Keith: Sounds good. Thank you. Great catching up.

Related Posts:

Share Your Thoughts Cancel reply