HIMSS16 Live Blog: Complete summary of the major events
HIMSS16 is expected to be the largest showing ever for this annual healthcare technology conference and reporters from Healthcare IT News, Healthcare Finance and MobiHealthNews will be posting dozens of stories on the panel discussions, keynote presentations, product launches, breaking news and after-hours events happening at the Las Vegas conference. Keep checking this live blog, which features live updates from our reporting staff, key resources, great images and some of the trending posts on social media from the show.
If you have an update that you think would be good to add, email henry.powderly@himssmedia.com. Please include your full name and title if you would like your update used.
That's it: HIMSS16 has come and gone, and, boy, did it leave us with a lot to take in. Over the next few weeks the Healthcare IT News staff will be following up all the big stories and topics that came out of the show. In the meantime, scroll through this (formerly) live blog to catch up on what you may have missed.
Peyton's pre-retirement party: Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning is expected to announced his retirement from professional football on Monday, but ahead of that he stopped by at HIMSS16 to talk about healthcare and leadership. See what he had to say.
Honoring innovation: At its Health Forum, Microsoft gave out awards in innovation. Read the story.
He's not running, though: One day before Mitt Romney held a national speech blasting Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, sat down for a fireside chat at the HX360 executive program and speculated on what the next president’s healthcare agenda would look like. Read the story.
The best pitch: Sansoro beat out 17 other startups in the Venture+ Forum Final Pitch competition. Read the story.
On revenue cycle: "Basic tenet of revenue cycle: Cannot create the patient financial experience of the future without the back office functionality to support it," said Stuart Hanson, chair of HIMSS Revenue Cycle Improvement Task Force.
Slavitt's view: "I've been spending last months with physicians trying to use technology. That may affect my mood just a bit." Read the story.
Intermountain's choice: Utah-based Intermountain Healthcare will deploy the Clinical Variation Management software from Ayasdi, a developer of machine intelligence applications for healthcare. Intermountain Healthcare believes the software can boost the insights the health system can gain from its mountain of health data. Read the story.
Chasing interoperability: Signet Accel has launched Avec, a commercial federated data integration platform designed to offer interoperability to healthcare organizations, the company announced at HIMSS16. Read the story.
Our talk with Faulkner: In a frank conversation with Healthcare IT News, Epic CEO Judy Falukner said her company gets a bad rap. "I was really insulted when they tried to position us as not doing interoperability,” she said. Read the full story here.
Day 3: The exhibition floor was surely packed on Tuesday as exhibitors spent hours talking about their products, solutions and business models with attendees. Unfortunately, the big crowds were a drag on the Wi-Fi at the show, which slowed down our live blog a bit. We've got a full lineup of coverage slated for Wednesday, though, so keep checking this page for updates.
Happening now on social
See more trending social posts.
Locator launched: Health information network Surescripts announced at HIMSS16 Tuesday the nationwide activation of its National Record Locator Service, a service designed to give providers a way to obtain a more complete view of a patient’s health history. Surescripts’ National Record Locator Service includes 140 million patients and nearly 2 billion interactions between patients and caregivers, the company said. Read the story.
On project pilots: “Pilots won’t be as easy to get, but they will be more meaningful and more valuable. That’s my hope anyway, we’re probably heading into a phase where pilots have defined commitment and a step that comes after that, instead of what a lot of people refer to as pilot purgatory,” said Dave Schulte, managing director at McKesson Ventures. Read the story.
Oracle's big news: IT giant Oracle unveiled its Oracle Healthcare Foundation Tuesday at HIMSS16 a next-generation version of Oracle Enterprise Healthcare Analytics that provides healthcare organizations with a consistent and complete patient-centric view of their clinical, financial and genomics data across an enterprise. Read the story.
And it's open: The exhibition floor opened at 9:30 a.m., and this year's booths are just about as big and intricate as you'd expect. If you have any experiences you'd like to share, email them to henry.powderly@himssmedia.com and we'll get them added to our live blog.
.@GEHealthcare wins for softest carpet at #HIMSS16 #twittertakeover pic.twitter.com/j00HlEnB59
— Microsoft in Health (@Health_IT) March 1, 2016
#HIMSS16: Day One of mentions of #HIMSS16 on Twitter it 22,160, which is the largest volume ever for the conference. Here is a link to further stats.
As we expected: RelayHealth Financial on Monday released a report showing that of the 262 million ICD-10 claims it processed between October 1, 2015, and February 15 using RelayHealth Financial revenue cycle management systems, only 1.6 percent were denied. Read the story.
Brand merger: CIOX Health launched Tuesday at the HIMSS16 Conference and Exhibition with the vision of advancing the way health information is managed. The company, created by the 2015 merger of HealthPort, IOD Inc., Care Communications Inc. and ECS, offers a variety of services in release of information, record retrieval and health information management, and serves more than 18,000 provider sites, 100 health plans and 1 million unique requesters of patient information, the company said. Get the story.
A social matter: As if Las Vegas wasn't enough fodder for photo sharing, attendees at the HIMSS16 conference this week have been sharing dozens of photos from the show floor, education sessions, parties and keynote events. See our running gallery of Instagram posts.
What we have here is ... Healthcare teams are striving to work as teams but in many cases, they lack the technology to communicate as a team. That was the message delivered by Neha Patel, MD, director of mobile strategy and applications, and director of quality for Penn Medicine in a HIMSS16 educational session Driving Value from Technology. Read more here.
Community building: On Monday, members of the new HIMSS Women in Health IT community held their first panel discussion. On Tuesday night, the group heads to Madam Tussaud's for their inaugural reception. Here is more info on this new group.
Day 2 - Show floor time: While Monday was mostly marked by day-long symposiums and high-profile speeches, Tuesday is sure to be much more hectic as the Exhibition Floor opens at 9:30 a.m. Our staff will also be covering many of the dozens of education session scheduled for Day 2. The bug event is tonight's keynote from ONC chief Karen DeSalvo and CMS acting-chief Andy Slavitt.
The big news:: Nearly every big name in healthcare technology has pledged to use standardized APIs, to make patient access easier and to not block information, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced during her HIMSS16 keynote Monday night. Read the story.
Burwell takes the stage
HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell delivered the keynote address on Monday. "Today 3/4 of doctors are using EHRs. There is now a digital care footprint for almost everyone in the country," she said.
Sage CIO insights: If 2015 had its share of challenges for CIOs and their hospitals, 2016 "is off to an amazing start," said CHIME Board Chair Marc Probst, chief information officer of Salt Lake City's Intermountain Healthcare, at the CIO Forum presented by CHIME and HIMSS on Monday. Read the story.
Real talk about EHRs: Dr. Farzad Mostashari, founder and CEO of Aledade: "Electronic records on their own do nothing to improve quality. All it was doing was documenting how badly the doctors were doing." He is recommending systematic changes in the health model to focus on value over volume.
Live now: Philips is sharing live video some of the HX360 discussions on Periscope. Click here for video.
.@HIMSS CEO & President, Steve Lieber on the essence of our vision. #HX360 #HIMSS16 pic.twitter.com/tA0EckVr6K
— HX360™ (@HX360_) February 29, 2016
Experian changes branding: Experian Health, a technology vendor that specializes in automating and integrating revenue cycle and patient care coordination, has announced at HIMSS16 that it has adopted the brand Experian Health across its entire portfolio of healthcare businesses. The company is making the change to reflect the unification of 11 of its brand names, including Experian Healthcare, SearchAmerica, Medical Present Value, Passport Health Communications Inc., DSG, STAT Technologies, NEBO Systems Inc., Terahealth, Health Works, Pro Services Health Information Technologies and MediCheck. Read the story.
Great to see this trending
Influential #WomenInHIT meet to discuss empowering more women to join health technology field. #HIMSS16 pic.twitter.com/615rIl84MD
— HIMSS (@HIMSS) February 29, 2016
The good rebel: True innovation often comes from a “single personality,” an outlier who sees ways to better connect with members of the community to better facilitate their health, Steve Steffensen, MD, a neurologist at Walter Reid Medical Center in Maryland, said at the HIMSS16 Innovation Symposium conference Monday. “It’s sometimes due to a rebel who sees things aren’t right, and needs to be better,” said Steffensen. “One of my roles is to recognize that -- sometimes the senior leadership doesn’t get it right.”
Where to begin?
Analytics deal: Analytics vendor ExtraHop has announced a new healthcare analytics bundle that supports clinical operations and patient care. The company also announced support for the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine protocol, enabling real-time stream analysis of data transmitted by medical imaging devices. Read the story.
Another announcement: Telemedicine technology vendor MDLIVE announced that it will complete the migration of its video consult platform to Microsoft Office 365 and Skype for Business during the second quarter of 2016. Office 365 and Skype for Business will give MDLIVE a more robust, secure and scalable collaboration platform as it continues to add consumers, physicians, employers, health systems and health plans to its connected care platform, the vendor said. Here's the story.
Military innovation: From Jeff Lagasse: "Dr. Steve Steffenson, a neurologist for the Military Health System at Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland, held a symposium on health system technological innovation Monday morning. He spoke about data visualization, and the need to personalize care to the consumer, citing technology's focus on the individual."
On failure: At the CIO Forum, author Thomas Goetz says there's a huge amount of trial and error in healthcare. "What if coffee only worked 35% of the time?" he said.
Feb. 29, 10:10 a.m. - Epic news: Tableau Software, a business analytics vendor, announced a technology agreement with electronic health records software kingpin Epic Systems Corp. under which healthcare organization clients can deliver insights from Tableau to users of Epic’s EHR. The insights should empower physicians and other caregivers with greater clinical analysis, the vendors said. Read the story.
Latest from the HIMSS16 Social Ambassadors
Tweets from https://twitter.com/HIMSS/lists/himss16-sm-ambassadors
Feb. 29, 9:20 a.m. - HIMSS chief at HX360: Steve Lieber, CEO and president of HIMSS, started the HX360 Innovation Leadership Program by saying, "Innovation is the only way to sustain the gains made in healthcare and the best hope for going beyond where we are today."
"If I don't provide you good quality, I don't provide you good service" - Scott Ulrich of @MethodistHosp #rethinkRCM
— Healthcare Finance (@HC_Finance) February 29, 2016
When in Vegas: At HIMSS16 CIO Forum, CHIME CEO Russ Branzell hit the stage in full Vegas-era Elvis Presley regalia, jumpsuit and all, Mike Miliard says.
At the same event, CHIME Board Chair Marc Probst said, "Moving beyond check-the-box of meaningful use means CIOs can take much more active and strategic role."
Strong words: “In this industry, were just going to keep getting better, healthcare is not going to stop getting better.” - Todd Dunn, director of innovation at Intermountain Healthcare
Product launch: Humana subsidiary Transcend Insights just unveiled an assortment of new applications that run on Humana’s HealthLogix technology and data platform. The suite includes HealthLogix Population, which offers actionable results for health system executives and care teams, while the web-and tablet-based HealthLogix Care sits on top of an EHR to present view of claims and wellness apps and myHealthLogix is the patient engagement app of the suite. See the story.
Day 1 - We're here: Day one of the HIMSS Annual Conference is about to start in Las Vegas, featuring a host of pre-conference symposiums before tonight's opening reception and first keynote address by Michael Dell and Sylvia Burwell. Included in today's coverage will be reporting from the Revenue Cycle Solutions Summit, the CIO Forum, the Cybersecurity Summit and today's women in Health IT panel. Refresh this live blog often for updates, and to see all of our coverage visit our Destination HIMSS site.
Contacting our reporters
Here's the full list and contact info for our reporters at HIMSS16. Reach out to them if you have news tips or just want to say hello.
Tom Sullivan, Editor-in-chief, Healthcare IT News - tom.sullivan@himssmedia.com
Mike Miliard, Editor, Healthcare IT News - mike.miliard@himssmedia.com
Bernie Monegain, Editor-at-large, Healthcare IT News - bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com
Jessica Davis, Associate Editor, Healthcare IT News - jessica.davis@himssmedia.com
Henry Powderly, Editor-in-chief, Healthcare Finance - henry.powderly@himssmedia.com
Beth Jones Sanborn, Managing Editor, Healthcare Finance - beth.sanborn@himssmedia.com
Susan Morse, Associate Editor, Healthcare Finance - susan.morse@himssmedia.com
Jeff Lagasse, Associate Editor, Healthcare Finance - jeff.lagasse@himssmedia.com
Brian Dolan, Editor-in-chief, MobiHealthNews - brian.dolan@himssmedia.com
Jonah Comstock, Managing Editor, MobiHealthNews - jonah.comstock@himssmedia.com
The setup has begun
MobiHealthNews catches up with Boston-area digital health pros. Click here to check out their video interviews.
Because you don't want to be the one talking revenue cycle in the analytics room
Click on the image to see this year's hashtag guide.
The Government session schedule has just been finalized. One highlight is the National Coordinator Spotlight Session with Karen DeSalvo; it starts Tuesday at 8:30 AM in Palazzo B Ballroom. Other sessions that will be popular are the CMS EHR Incentive Programs in 2015 through 2017 (Tuesday at 10 am) and A Special Sesion with ONC and CMS (Karen DeSalvo and Andy Slavitt will both appear) on stage, Tuesday at 5:30 in the Rock of Ages Theater. For the full schedule, see the HIMSS Conference website.
Looking ahead to HIMSS, from Tom Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Healthcare IT News: "I'll be on the prowl for: population health, chronic care management, emerging technologies and, of course, what would HIMSS be without some wrangling over meaningful use? Whereas my Healthcare IT News colleagues Bernie Monegain and Mike Miliard have been to more than 10 (never ask a lady her age) and seven HIMSS conferences, respectively, this will be my fifth. So I’ll also be looking to mark progress made since HIMSS12 by EHR vendors in terms of interoperability and usability, the presence of stalwart IT vendors such as Dell, IBM, Microsoft, SAP and Oracle, as well as the innovative upstarts hoping to either disrupt the industry or at least make a modicum of difference."
New App: Finding the shuttles at HIMSS16
Conference organizers have announced an app will be available to track the shuttle buses during HIMSS16. The app is called ETS Shuttle Tracker and it will provide updates on each of the bus routes in real time during the conference. Here is the link for iOS, and here it is for Android.
Selfies and videos
Vendor TeleTracking is asking HIMSS16 attendees to stop by its booth, number 7410, to take selfies with its teddy bear mascot @TheRealTeleBear. At the same time, Microsoft will be running kiosks at the show were attendees can share their thoughts about the conference by recording short videos. The kiosks will be at Microsoft booth 3832 and the GE Healthcare booth 3055.
Getting ready for the show?
Just like attendees, reporters here have spent the past few weeks preparing for the big event. For us, that also meant writing dozens of preview articles about key events, panels and expected product launches at the conference. For our complete pre-show coverage, visit our Destination HIMSS16 page.
This Just In @ HIMSS
This year we will have a live radio station featuring interviews with top healthcare insiders from the HIMSS Media booth on the show floor. Here are a few that we have lined up. Click here for more info:
Ben Wilson, Citrix
Ed Marx, The Advisory Board
Mariann Yeager, The Sequoia Project
Sean Updegrove, Children's Hospital Los Angeles
John Mattison, Kaiser Permanente
Mason Beard, Wellcentive
Kurt Romer, Citrix
Products expected to launch at HIMSS16
More than a handful of companies choose to release big news on their new platforms at the annual conference. Here are a few product launches we got an early look at:
- eClinicalWorks makes big move into acute care EHRs
- Nuance to unveil new Dragon Medical One Platform speech recognition tool
- CTS Healthcare Services to debut mid-market patient check-in kiosk
- SA Ignite to debut PQRS Assistant
- ZirMed to launch Remit and Deposit Management system
- VisualDx to unveil vastly expanded clinical decision support system
- Carestream to unveil mobile photo capture module
Looking ahead to HIMSS, from Healthcare Finance managing editor Beth Sanborn: "It's my first HIMSS Conference and my first trip to Vegas as well. It's clear from all the preparation and preview materials that this event is huge, and unlike anything I have ever experienced before. I'm looking forward to the energy, innovation, and insight that we are sure to witness and experience there. I'm also looking forward to interviewing movers and shakers within the industry and adding engaging videos to what will undoubtedly an ocean of fantastic, original, and sought-after content. Topics of interest for me: innovations in telehealth and on-demand healthcare services, as well as cybersecurity.
Looking ahead to HIMSS, from Bernie Monegain, editor-at-large for Healthcare IT News: "I’m looking forward to all the buzz that is the HIMSS Conference and Exhibition (it is both conference and show). I’ve been attending for more than 10 years, and it never disappoints. I think of it as a healthcare IT extravaganza –where many of the smartest movers and shakers – at times U.S. presidents, quarterbacks, and Hollywood stars among them – converge to talk policy, high-tech, innovation and interoperability – all in the interest of improving healthcare."
So what will the big topics be?
So far, it looks like privacy and security is leading. Answer the poll below:
All work and no play ...
Will most days at HIMSS filled with info sessions, presentations and booth hopping across the expansive show floor, nights often give attendees a chance to cut loose with their peers. Here's a list of some of the parties, entertainment and events surrounding the show.
MobiHealthNews is back in the podcasting business: In preparation for the show, the editors posted their first podcast episode in which they take a look at digital health efficacy along with special guests Sean Duffy, CEO and Co-Founder of Omada Health; Christine Lemke, President and Co-Founder of Evidation Health, and Dr. Richard Milani, Chief Clinical Transformation Officer at Ochsner Health System in New Orleans. Listen here.
Tip One: The shuttle is free: Las Vegas has plenty of taxi cabs but you don’t need to spend your expense account on car fare. HIMSS provides a free shuttle service from most hotels during regular conference hours. There is even free transportation to the airport. Get more essential tips from the HIMSS16 Survival Guide.
Bush, Halamka on interoperability
"You can look at the pressure we have today on creating interoperability and what you have is a lot of government mandates without the infrastructure to empower those mandates, but there are also examples of things that have gone right across the country, which we can replicate," said Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CIO John Halamka, who will join athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush to discuss this hot topic at HIMSS16.
Notable quotables from HIMSS past
Click on the image to see what 11 notable keynote speakers at HIMSS over the years have said.
Looking ahead to HIMSS, from Brian Dolan, editor-in-chief of MobiHealthNews: I’m facing down my 8th trip to HIMSS. In 2009 the big stories for MobiHealthNews were three (rather lonely) new iPhone apps for doctors and nurses. Those were simpler times: Healthcare was just beginning to enter a multi-year app obsession and patient-facing digital health hadn’t arrived at HIMSS Annual Conference yet. This year I’m seeking out providers who have begun to embrace patient generated health data, telehealth and other programs that support patients between visits. Jonah Comstock and I will also be keeping an ear out for unique voices for the podcast we’ll be producing. Give a shout if that sounds like you. Finally, I’ll be sharing plans (in very hushed tones) about the very first MobiHealthNews event, which will take place early this summer.
More buzz for predictive analytics
"We took the budget and the business analytics and married them,” said MaryPat Sullivan, chief nursing officer at Overlook Medical Center in Summit, New Jersey. “It gives staff the control over their working environment and work in a way to maximize patient outcomes.”
Sullivan will talk at HIMSS16 about how predictive analytics use helped Atlantic Health save millions.
Looking ahead to HIMSS16, from Mike Miliard, editor of Healthcare IT News: "As always, I'm looking forward to meeting with hospital CIOs from across the country at HIMSS16, to talk about their challenges and successes over the past year and their to-do lists for the year ahead. With so much changing so fast these days in healthcare, it's enlightening to get a sense of how tactical projects tell the story of larger evolving trends. As priorities have pivoted away from EHR implementations and meaningful use compliance toward bigger, more rewarding goals such as coordinated care and population health management, it's always rewarding to hear – in-person – about how these changes are playing out in real-time."
Looking ahead to HIMSS16, from Jonah Comstock, managing editor of MobiHealthNews: "This is actually my third HIMSS conference, but my first as a HIMSS employee and my first time in Las Vegas (woo!). My birthday also falls during the show, so that should make it a memorable HIMSS and a memorable birthday. That's Tuesday night, which is also our HealthTech Boston meetup. The last meetup of that group was here in town and it was a lot of fun, so I'm looking forward to that. I always go to HIMSS looking for news from providers (and hopefully pharma and payers) about actual adoption and scaling of the digital health interventions we write about, so that's one thing I'll be on the lookout for."
"Oh and one more fun fact: I'm not a football guy at all, but I'm from Indianapolis originally and Peyton actually went to my mom's church. So if I happen to meet him at the show, it'll be the second time."
What are they going to say?
When HIMSS announced that Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning would join the stage with the team physician for the Carolina Panthers at HIMSS16, the Super Bowl hadn't even been played. But with Peyton ending up in the winning side, it's going to be interesting to see how these two react to one another at the event. Here's more info on that keynote presentation.
Looking ahead to HIMSS16, from Jessica Davis, associate editor of Healthcare IT News: "As it's my first HIMSS16, I'm looking forward to immersing myself in the tech, culture and conversations at the conference. I've spoken to many of the featured speakers and even a few social media ambassadors, so it will be nice to finally put faces to the names, as well. I hope to see the tech up-close and I'm getting excited to hear about the big topics on everyone's mind this year: population health, health IT security, the end (or not) of meaningful use and telemedicine. And of course, it's Las Vegas, who wouldn't be thrilled to see all of the sights?"
Crowdsourcing and healthcare
"I think one of the most untapped uses of social media in healthcare is crowdsourcing feedback. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are amazing platforms to test ideas. There isn't another place where you can go and tap into a community of people who are passionate about improving healthcare for feedback."
- HIMSS16 Social Media Ambassador Colin Hung
Twitter: @HenryPowderly
