Now that HIMSS15 is over, the booths are broken down, and attendees all cleared out, let’s take a look at some of the trends that bubbled up at the show. Yes, there were the overarching themes of interoperability and the disconcertingly-vague population health bandwagon, but there were also many other realms that garnered a good share of attention.

Here are my top five:

1. Value-based care. IBM announced plans to acquire Dallas, TX based Phytel, a provider of cloud based services for population health management. IBM followed that announcement with plans to acquire Explorys, a healthcare intelligence cloud company that has built one of the largest clinical data repositories. Investor interest at HIMSS remained high as public securities firms continued to seek data on Inovalon’s recent IPO.  Inovalon is a cloud analytics company with a population health “intervention platform.” The company’s approach is to blend actionable analytics with outsourced services to intervene with patient engagement when the analytics identify gaps in patient care. The buzz continued regarding Evolent health, a company that sells software and consulting services to healthcare providers; The Advisory Board, TPG, and UPMC Health Plan back Evolent.

2. mHealth. Since patients are being asked to become more accountable for their personal wellness under the ACA, HIMSS15 was also a venue for more mobile and wearable solutions that connect value based care solutions in the cloud. Both physician and patient engagement solutions were highlighted. According to the 2015 HIMSS Mobile Technology Survey, 90 percent of American adults now own a mobile device. As a result, the healthcare industry sees mobility as a critical component to the shift to patient-centered and value-based care. Respondents of this year’s survey reported leveraging a variety of mobile tools including: app-enabled patient portals (73 percent), telehealth services (62 percent) and text communications (57 percent). Of these technologies, 36 percent of respondents believe the use of app-enabled patient portals is the most effective tool in patient engagement to date.

3. Emerging technologies. HIMSS15 served as a venue for new product launches. Two of the less-covered ones include DenialsIQ from GE and Atlanta based Rightpatient, spun out of a biometrics company. DenialsIQ analyzes denied claims to finds patterns and determine why the denial occurred. Rightpatient is a mobile personal health record and analytics solution focused on ways to manage not only patient wellness, but also medical billing and appointments. TigerText announced HIPAA compliant messaging for Apple Watch with features for secure alerts, speech-to-text and image transmission. And the Genesis Accountable Physician Network (GAPN) is now using BluePrint’s Care Navigator platform to enable physicians and care coordinators to better engage patients and caregivers beyond the episode of care for accountable care performance.

4. SMAC. Buyers of social, mobile, analytics and cloud will have more to think about as the market becomes crowed. HIMSS15 mobile survey respondents indicated budget as a key barrier to further implementation of mobile technologies. Yet, fifty-four percent indicated they had achieved cost savings when asked if the deployment of mobile technology had a positive effect. Mobile security, including remote wiping capabilities is important. “Over half of HIPAA violations on the CMS wall of shame appear to come from lost or stolen devices,” said Arthur R. Henderson, President of Affinity Networks.

5. Data and process siloes persist. Despite the excitement and promise of each solution, there’s a catch. In the future, to maximize effectiveness, solutions will be more about ways to blend all of the analytic reporting, value-based care solutions and mobile data presentation across different data siloes. Today, retrospective administrative data about patients (financial value of health care claims and X12 claims transactions such as eligibility and prior authorizations) is primarily used to improve population health. Process optimization to ensure that the right members of the clinical team are engaged is also important. Retrospective data is helpful, but if it is 90-days old it is less actionable. Clinicians may miss an opportunity for an intervention. Soon, timely clinical data about the patient’s most recent visit, conditions and medical procedures will need to be integrated to complete the picture.