Today is the official start of National Healthcare IT Week (#NHITWeek). Do you have any plans for #NHITWeek? Are you doing anything special? I personally don’t have any huge plans, but I do have one post for #NHITWeek that I hope people will enjoy. Watch for that coming later this week on one of the Healthcare Scene blogs.
If you want a full run down of official #NHITWeek activities, EHR Intelligence has put that together. HIMSS seems to be the real driver behind the week from what I can tell. I’ve never been to Washington during #NHIT Week, so maybe that’s why I haven’t ever seen the impact of the week. I guess I’m skeptical about what it really accomplishes.
What I have enjoyed is following the #NHITWeek hashtag on Twitter. There’s a lot of activity on the hashtag. You just have to filter through the #NHITWeek fluff and marketing. From the looks of Regina Holliday’s tweet, there are quite a few people attending the event she’s attending:
RT @ReginaHolliday: #nhitweek it is a great crowd here pic.twitter.com/D5GMU8iTW4
— covisint (@covisint) September 15, 2014
Plus, you get to see other craziness like this QR code connected to Casey Quinlan’s health record that she had tattooed on her chest:
I for one threw privacy overboard like a dead cat by planting this on my chest (PW protected, tho) pic.twitter.com/kH1BZLzzhY #hcsmca
— Casey Quinlan (@MightyCasey) August 6, 2014
Not to mention, you get links to great resources like this one from Steve Sisko:
Looking for some good people to follow during #NHITWeek? Check out these lists: http://t.co/jOSj1jYpvC #healthIT #HITsm
— Steve Sisko (@ShimCode) September 15, 2014
I think that Steve has the right spirit for what #NHITWeek is for me. It’s about connecting people in the space. It’s always great when we can share the work that’s being done across the spectrum of health IT. I’m always amazed at how many people are working so hard day in and day out to make healthcare IT work.
Attended first session. Highlights for me were:
o Much about Blue Button and patient involvement.
o Genetic Alliance’s Sharon Terry lamented the extent of silos both system and organizational.
o Laura McCarary explained how Kansas has overcome exchange problems and how each patient in the Kansas system will get a PHR.
o Jocelyn Samuels of HHS’ Office for Civil Rights discussed their extensive web resources on privacy, access to lab data, etc.
o Alexis Barries of Healthshack spoke of their providing PHRs for homeless youth.
Thanks for the summary Carl. I hope you’ll share more in a post.