Among the day-long (and half-day) specialty forums and summits offered at HIMSS19 on February 11 and 12, there are six – co-hosted by Healthcare IT News and other HIMSS Media brands Healthcare Finance News and MobiHealthNews – that offer deep dives into some of the most important tech topics facing the industry today.

Each of them will offer and up-close and interactive opportunities to learn from IT leaders and healthcare decision-makers about how they're putting information and technology to work to drive lasting healthcare improvements. They take place in Orlando's Rosen Centre, and cost $350  with the advanced registration discount until Jan. 15. Register here.

Healthcare heads to the cloud

At the Cloud Computing Forum (Monday at 8 a.m. in Rosen Centre - Executive Ballroom I), attendees can gain insights about how best to leverage the cloud to drive clinical improvements and operational efficiencies.

From security to interoperability to analytics and workflow, the cloud offers huge opportunities but must be deployed with deliberation, with special attention paid to specific organizational needs. Other sessions at the event will include a presentation from Rush University Medical Center experts, who will show how it has implement a mix of cloud IaaS and PaaS offerings (as well as Hadoop distribution and a cloud data lake), and one from infosec leaders at Cleveland Clinic, Wellforce ad UMPC, who'll offer their perspectives on ensuring provider organizations move safely to cloud-based hosting.

Artificial intelligence, genuine opportunities

At Machine Learning & AI for Healthcare (Monday at 8 a.m. in Rosen Centre - Junior Ballroom), HIMSS19 attendees will have a full day of sessions showing how these still-emerging but fast-evolving technologies are already leading to fundamental changes in all corners of care delivery.

Starting with a keynote from Dr. Anthony Chang, chief intelligence and innovation officer at CHOC Children's, focusing on the "Synergies Between Man and Machine," the schedule of events will also feature sessions from experts from a diverse array of leading healthcare organizations – Duke, Hackensack Meridian, Optum, WMC Health and many others – showing how machine learning is helping drive efficiencies with predictive analytics, AI is boosting the value of imaging data, cognitive computing is improving oncology applications and much more.

Better experience for bigger engagement

For the second year, in a row, our Patient Engagement & Experience Summit (Monday at 8 a.m. in Rosen Centre – Grand Ballroom C) adds that all-important third word – "experience" to the equation. After all, as Cleveland Clinic Chief Experience Officer Adrienne Boissy will surely be showing in her opening keynote, "Empathy by Design," you can't have one without the other: A positive healthcare experience helps build and sustain greater engagement for patients and clinicians alike.

Other sessions during this summit include: tips on incorporating AI into the patient experience from digital and consumer experts from Thomas Jefferson University Hospital; advice from the CIO of Yale New Haven Health System for "extending empathy into the digital era," and perspective from a Cleveland Clinic psychologist about best ways to incorporate and make use of "co-designed" patient information.

Pharma: a new face at HIMSS19

At the inaugural Pharma Forum (Tuesday at noon in Rosen Centre – Grand Ballroom C), we'll be focusing for the first time ever on one of the most crucial triads in healthcare: pharma-provider-payer collaborations. HIMSS19 Champion of Health Dr. Rasu Shrestha, soon to be chief strategy officer at Atrium Health, will host the event.

The pharma business model is changing, after all, and the industry is now appreciating the need to collaborate with providers, payers – and patients – with IT as a key enabler. At this half-day program, leaders from across those industries will compare notes and best practices and explore new ways to drive synergies among them as value-based care continues to gain traction. Among the topics to be explored: What do providers want from the pharmaceutical industry? How is digital technology impacting pharma's new imperatives? And how can silos be broken down to encourage collaboration and innovation on all sides?

Making precision medicine work in practice

Longtime Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CIO Dr. John Halamka is scheduled to keynote the HIMSS19 Precision Medicine Summit (Monday at 8 a.m. in Rosen Centre – Executive Ballroom H). He'll outline the promises and challenges of personalized care – drawing not just from his own clinical and technological experience, but also the journey of his wife Kathy, whose breast cancer was treated with help from these emerging techniques.

The day will also be filled with detailed presentations and panel discussions, exploring the many facets of precision med: applications for chronic care management, challenges related to interoperability and data exchange, strategies for assessing value and potential ROI of precision medicine programs, advice for moving genomic techniques into general practice, legal considerations and much more.

Revenue cycle management means consumerism, cybersecurity and more

At the Revenue Cycle Solutions Summit (Monday at 8 a.m. in Rosen Centre – Grand Ballroom DE), the age of consumerism will be a major focus of discussion, as hospitals and health systems adjust to a new era of technology-enabled patient empowerment. In his keynote, Karl West, chief information security officer at Intermountain Healthcare, will offer an interesting twist on that new paradigm, with a talk titled "Securing the Consumer-Driven Revenue Cycle."

With more consumers engaging directly with healthcare providers, after all, there's a whole lot more more data. And that can come with a big potential cost for health systems that prioritize access and convenience over security. Other presentations planned for this rev cycle event will explore tips for patient-centric financing strategies; best practices for reengineering check-in to improve the patient experience and perspectives on how AI and automation are reshaping all aspects of revenue cycle management.

Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com

Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.