HIMSS 2010: A Stimulating Start

No matter how many trade shows I attend I can not help myself from becoming overwhelmed by the amount of brain power in one building and this year’s HIMSS show is no different.  Well, I take that back.  With the comment period closing shortly on CMS’s meaningful use Notice Proposed Rule Making, the brain power seems to be stimulated in the way that the current administration would like to stimulate the economy.  ARRA/HITECH is clearly the top topic this year, but so far I am hearing disagreement on how much stimulating has actually occurred.  I will continue to observe and learn more on this for the rest of the week.

Progress Report

1. Travel to Atlanta – My travel was uneventful except for an hour wait for luggage at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.  They have significantly remodeled the customer service area since I lived in Atlanta eight years ago, but it is still an overwhelmingly large airport that can be intimidating for the unseasoned traveler.
2. Get lay of the land in Atlanta and create plan of attack for the week – I have mapped out a  plan to visit Fuji, McKesson, Philips, TeraMedica, Acuo, Siemens, CPSI, Vista, Laitek, Laurel Bridge, Secant, and as many small hospital EMR vendors as possible.  I am also planning on attending education sessions on ICD-10 and Integrating Images in EMRs.
3. Set up for and attend FCG Alumni Happy Hour that I coordinated! – This was our second annual HIMSS happy hour event and it was a tremendous success except that I was so busy networking that I forgot to take out my camera and snap a few pictures to preserve some memories.  Of note is that the principles of many Healthcare consultancies were there and were willingly sharing their perspectives on the current state of the market.  To summarize the perspectives,  many are bullish but cautious about 2010 – they are overbooked for the first time in a long time.  Firms represented were Impact Advisors, Santa Rosa Consulting, Himformatics, CSC, Aspen Advisors, mEDhealth advisors, AsTech and many others.

Tuesday Agenda:

1. Meetings with well-known Career experts
2. “Drive-by’s’ with several of the vendors mentioned above
3. Learn more about a few companies with new and innovative business models like The Center for Imaging

I will continue to blog daily on the most interesting things that  I learn on each topic and the most interesting people that I meet.  Please help me by sharing any content you have found stimulating on any of these topics in a comment below.