We all love to hear about and read about healthcare IT companies with massive visions that are making big bets on some moonshot idea. In fact, there’s a lot of value in thinking about and having moonshot ambitions that could disrupt healthcare as we know it. However, what’s unfortunate is that it seems like every healthcare IT conference out there is far too focused on these moonshot ideas that they miss talking about and collaborating on ways to innovatively deal with the real life challenges hospital IT professionals face every day.
This is the genesis behind why I finally pulled the trigger and launched a new healthcare IT conference called Health IT Expo. I’ve talked to far too many hospital IT professionals that go away from a health IT conference totally empty and in some cases upset that a conference could be so disconnected from the true healthcare IT challenges and realities they face in their hospitals and health systems.
As I’ve discussed this new conference with people, some get the wrong impression about what we’re trying to accomplish. Some suggest that we’re shunning healthcare innovation. I’d argue quite the opposite. At Healthcare IT Expo, our goal is to embrace the full spectrum of innovation and not just those innovations that might be considered “disruptive” or “breakthrough” innovations.
Let’s consider some of the areas that hospital and health system professionals would really like to see innovation and find answers:
- How can I more effectively manage and secure my desktop and mobile device infrastructure?
- What’s the right approach to virtualization in my organization? Is it really cost effective? What are the pitfalls I should be aware of?
- How do I deal with all these legacy applications?
- What’s the appropriate steps to take when a security breach occurs? (Yes, I already know a security breach is going to occur)
- How can I ensure the data in my EHR is high quality data that’s useful in analytics applications?
- What’s the best way to get data out of my EHR so I can use it for [insert project here]?
- What actionable things can I do to “secure” my biggest security risk: people?
- How can I streamline my 15 communication systems?
- In what ways can I improve my EHR training and ensure my users are performing at optimum levels even with inevitable turnover?
- What should I really be doing with my portal that’s effective for patients and providers?
- How can I cost effectively handle my support desk so it can handle level 1, level 2, and level 3 support issues 24/7/365 without alienating the wide variety of users we need to support?
- Do I need a data center? How should I approach my existing server infrastructure and new cloud options?
- How can I improve patient identification and patient matching across all of my IT systems?
- What can I do to improve patient registration?
- Is single sign-on really possible and what can I do to better handle user provisioning?
- Have I done a proper HIPAA risk assessment? What’s the right way to do remediation? Have I done remediation of any HIPAA risks found?
- That’s great that you want to user virtual reality, but how am I going to secure it?
How are we going to clean it? What’s the product lifecycle going to look like? - What’s the proper way to do penetration testing?
- Where can I find real time analytics that are ready to be implemented today?
- How can I better manage the hundreds of forms across my organization?
- etc etc etc
I could go on and on and these are just touching the surface of the challenges. No doubt there are a hundred more challenges that don’t get covered at most healthcare IT Conferences because they have the wrong focus and the wrong people attending.
We all want to talk about AI, but what’s the point if I’m still trying to make sure the data is clean and that it’s stored in something other than a PDF or some inaccessible archaic system? Health IT Expo is focused on practical innovation.
If you’re a healthcare IT professional dealing with these real challenges and are looking for practical innovations that will help you and your organization, please join us at Health IT Expo. We want as many in the Healthcare Scene community to join us in New Orleans, so you can also get $300 off your registration (Only $395 to attend after the discount) for Health IT Expo by using the promo code hcscene on the normal registration page. We’re certain you’ll find no other conference out there that provides as much value for the price.
Plus, the Call for Speakers is still open if you have a practical innovation you can share. We even have options for 15 minute sessions if your innovation is useful and impactful, but doesn’t require a speaking degree to share.
Sorry for the sales pitch, but as you can tell I’m excited by Health IT Expo. I think we’ve created a unique conference that will help many hospital IT professionals find a more satisfying conference experience. As someone who’s attended hundreds of healthcare IT conferences, I’ve seen first hand the good, the bad, and the ugly of conferences. We’re taking all of those learnings and packing them into Health IT Expo.
What do you think of this approach? What do you think of Health IT Expo? What other problems do you have that you think we should cover? We’d love to hear from you in the comments or on our contact us page.
