For those not familiar with the International CES conference, it’s held in Las Vegas every year at the beginning of January. CES stands for consumer electronic show and it is a show that literally takes over the city of Las Vegas. It’s so full of tech and geek that they use the entire Las Vegas Convention Center, the entire Sands Convention Center, and all of the conference area of the Westgate (Previously LVH and the Hilton), and all of the conference area in the Aria, and at least a couple days at Mandalay Bay. Long story short, the event is massive! I bet some of the larger vendors spend upwards of a million dollars or more on their booths.
As part of the growth of the show, there’s been a larger and larger digital health section of the show. Plus, that doesn’t really include the massive companies like Samsung that have gotten into health as well but have an enormous booth in another area of the show.
The largest portion of health at CES carries the banner of the Digital Health Summit and mostly includes wearables (check out my previous post on Hospitals and Wearables) and robotics (often tied to Telemedicine). However, I know many technology people come to see where the tech is headed so they can prepare. That’s why I attend the event every year.
To be honest, I’ll be surprised if I see any hospital CIOs at CES. Possibly a few hospital CTOs who are looking at some technology, but that might even be a stretch. What it makes me wonder is where hospital IT executives search to see what’s happening next for technology. Where do you look for innovation and where technology that can benefit your hospital is heading?
Hi John,
Great to see you covering the show. You will definitely see hospital CIOs at the show this year–we have CIOs from both Cedars Sinai and Stanford speaking on a very cool session “Revisiting the Revolution: How Two CIOs are Challenging the System” on January 8th. Also a large portion of the agenda is focused on the medical/clinical side even though we are part of the ‘Consumer’ Electronics Show.
One more session to point out: Samsung’s President Young Sohn will sit one-on-one with UCSF’s Dr. Michael Blum, Head of the CDHI for a great candid conversation about their new partnership – leading consumer electronics company meets leading healthcare provider.
Look forward to seeing you!
Jill Gilbert
Producer, Digital Health Summit @ CES
Hi Jill,
Thanks for pointing out the sessions. The Samsung President discussion sounds quite interesting. I’ll have to get it on my calendar.
I’ll have to see if I can find those CIOs and get their take on CES and if they are doing more than just their own sessions.