Just got back from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) meeting in Vegas. A bigger conference I have never seen nor attended! There were 45,000 attendees on hand. To give a frame of reference, most plastic surgery meetings I go to have 2000 attendees at the absolute most!
Healthcare IT, the people that make sure every healthcare institution’s information technology (read computers, electronic medical records) is working, is big business. You can’t do anything in healthcare without relying on a computer or health information that is protected on a computer or in the cloud. Virtually every aspect of a hospital or medical practice involves information technology. With so many stakeholders, this is a huge conference.
One of the more telling aspects of how big a meeting this is and how important health IT has become, is the size of the exhibit hall. The photos and videos below don’t do this exhibit hall justice. It was simply too big an area to get a panoramic view from the ground level.
HIMSS Exhibit Hall Highlights
OK, so why does this exhibit for an electronic medical record need a waterfall?!
Again, the photos aren’t adequate to describe how big the exhibit space for both Cerner and Epic are. Both companies make electronic medical records and they literally take up the size of a city block in the exhibit hall. Cerner, with the “halo” above, recently received a multi-billion dollar contract from the Federal government. Apparently several hundreds of thousands of dollars went to this exhibit!
Look closely at the screen in the background below…what is that promoting?!
When I wasn’t walking around the exhibit hall in wonderment, I was presenting a talk on price transparency in healthcare and how pricing can be used as a “carrot” for lead generation. The talk went well and there were a few reporters in the audience. You can read their take here and here. Also, to hear a podcast regarding my topic, click here.
If you’re in the health IT space, this is a conference that should be on your bucket list!
