The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, with its more than 1,700 members, gets down to work today at its CHIME15 Fall CIO Forum.

First up are three sunrise sessions, one on 2015 Most Wired Advanced hospitals, another about CHIME going international, and the third, a public policy debrief, that provides a CIO take on the government's meaningful use Program. The debrief is led by Liz Johnson, RN, chief information officer of acute care hospitals & applied clinical informatics at Tenet Healthcare, and Pam McNutt, senior vice president and CIO at Methodist Health System.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released the 752-page meaningful use rule on Oct. 6. The new rule provides flexibility for which CHIME and other stakeholder groups had lobbied.

[See also: CMS drops final EHR meaningful use rule and CHIME: Stage 3 rules 'unworkable'.]

Key to CHIME membership is the 90-day reporting period, down from 365 days, CHIME executives have noted.

CHIME was also pleased with the relaxing of Stage 3 requirements. "The extra comment period will enable providers, CMS and other stakeholders to ensure that the next stage of meaningful use advances interoperability and takes into account new payment models being advanced by Medicare," CHIME Board Chair Charles Christian said in a statement, when the rule was released.

Most Wired Advanced
Jim Turnbull, CIO of University of Utah Health Care and Elizabeth Kerns, vice president and CIO, Lakeland Regional Medical Center will discuss what strategies they employed to achieve the Advanced status on the Most Wired List. This year, there were only six hospitals to do so.

Expanding membership
CHIME is expanding its membership to include CIO counterparts around the world. CHIME Vice President of Membership and Professional Development George McCulloch and Jan-Eric Slot, CIO at Bernhoven Hospital in Germany, team up to explore the opportunities that come with an international membership at this morning's sunrise session.

Keynote speakers
The sunrise sessions are followed by the first of three keynotes scheduled for the event.  

Today, it's motivational speaker Shawn Achor, CEO of Good Think, Inc., and author of the New York Times best selling books, The Happiness Advantage and Before Happiness. He'll talk about the connection between happiness and success.

The rest of the day is chock-a-block filled with track sessions that include discussions about the evolving role of the CIO, virtual care with mobile devices, building and putting in place an IT strategic plan in 90 days, and enabling the hospital Steve Jobs would have built.

Fareed Zakaria host of Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN and a Washington Post columnist, is keynote speaker on Friday. Pamela Meyers, certified fraud examiner and the best-selling author of LieSpotting keynotes Saturday.