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Remember, HIMSS is a marathon, not a sprint

At the risk of sounding too cliché, I’m going to say that HIMSS is a marathon, not a sprint. (Actually, I said it twice, if you count the headline.) And I’m exhausted already.

Planning for the annual madness, which starts this weekend here in Chicago, is almost as grueling as the conference itself, and I got a late start because I didn’t know until a couple weeks ago who I would be covering the event for. In case you were still wondering, I’m now a full-time staffer for MedCity News, so you can read my work there. In less than a week on the job, I’m already feeling a better vibe than I ever did with the last attempt at full-time work.

I have a feeling others are as exhausted as I am, or at least can empathize with all the scheduling that has to go into HIMSS  for a journalist. I need to find stories, but I also need to leave myself time to, you know, actually write the stories. We shall see if I succeed, because I feel overscheduled already.

How do I know it’s a common feeling? This semi-exasperated tweet I sent out a few days ago has gotten favorited a dozen times, which is just about a record for me.

 

The “1,400 of you, one of me” line has kind of become a mantra for me when dealing with people who are begging for a bit of my time. I did not violate my Rule #2 of HIMSS, which is never schedule back-to-back meetings in different locations. (Rule No. 1, of course, is wear comfortable shoes.)

I just hope I can get all my work done, and that I can get a solid six hours of sleep a night next week, even though it’s a home game for me this year. I’m not terribly far from McCormick Place, but it’s a pain to get to from where I am on the North Side. It’s either an hour-plus on public transit, with one transfer, or $21 per day to park. I’d ride my bike down there, but you probably don’t want to see me in spandex. I still may do that on Saturday before most of you are in town. Be warned.

I probably won’t be blogging on this site during HIMSS, though I may have some multimedia to post at some point. If you want to read my coverage, head over to MedCity News. My HIMSS preview should be up by the time you get to town this weekend. And if you haven’t done so already, click on the above tweet and follow me on Twitter.

Welcome to Chicago.

 

April 9, 2015 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

New Media Meetup at HIMSS15 showcases Chicago icon

The New Media Meetup, now in its sixth year, has become a staple at the annual HIMSS conference. As a longtime resident of Chicago, I’m excited to tell you that this year’s event will be held at the legendary Gino’s East pizzeria, Tuesday, April 14 from 6 to 8 p.m. CDT.

As usual, your host will be John Lynn, founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network, of which Meaningful HIT News is a member. Here are the basics:

When: Tuesday 4/14 6:00-8:00 PM
Where: Gino’s East, 162 E. Superior St., Chicago, IL 60611 MAP
Who: Anyone who uses or is interested in New Media (Blogs, Twitter, Social Media, etc)
What: Food, Drinks, and Amazing People

Note: We have limited space for the event and so like in past years, we’ll have to close registration once we reach capacity.

Check out John’s blog post for more details, as well as information on the first-ever Healthcare IT Marketing and PR Conference he is hosting in Las Vegas May 7-8.

In case you were wondering, I still do not know who I will be covering HIMSS15 for, so I’m unable to schedule meetings yet. I expect to have at least a partial answer in the next week or so.

March 17, 2015 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

Join the discussion about wearable technology

The thing about the Internet is that you never know when something is going to go viral or spark heated debate. (Actually, it’s a fairly sure bet that anything involving politics, religion or sports will lead to heated debate, generally of the lowbrow variety.)

Less common is informed, intelligent discussion on the Internet. Something I wrote early yesterday for Forbes.com has, happily, fallen into this category.

My post, “Hype Around Healthcare Wearables Runs Into Reality,” is far from the most inflammatory piece I’ve written about overblown hype in healthcare innovation, or, as Dr. Joseph Kvedar called it, “irrational exuberance,” borrowing a line from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

It’s also far from the most-viewed item I’ve had on the Forbes.com platform since I started about six months ago. However, it’s generating a lot of discussion on Paul Sonnier’s Digital Health group on LinkedIn. As of this writing, there are 28 comments, or more than one per hour since the original post went up at 9:54 am EST Wednesday.

If you’re one of the more than 30,000 members of that group, I encourage you to join the discussion. If not, you might want to join the group, or comment on the original post at Forbes.com.

I haven’t decided yet if I’ll throw in an additional two cents, since I did, you know, already give my opinion in the actual post.

December 11, 2014 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

HIMSS gossip

ORLANDO, Fla.—Two days of HIMSS14 have come and gone, and I’m not bouncing off the walls just yet. But I did bounce off the pavement Monday night when I tripped exiting a shuttle bus, and have some facial scrapes to show for it. You will see the evidence whenever Health Innovation Media gets around to posting a video interview I conducted Tuesday afternoon.

Health Innovation Media’s Gregg Masters and Dr. Pat Salber have been camped out near the HIMSS press room since Sunday with their video equipment, querying various newsmakers on various health IT topics, and occasionally having guest interviewers. As I walked out of the press room on my way to the exhibit hall, I said hello to former national health IT coordinator Dr. Farzad Mostashari, who looked like he was just hanging around, but was actually waiting to be interviewed. Masters and Salber asked me if I’d be interested in interviewing Mostashari right there on the spot with no preparation, and with just 15 minutes to get down to the show floor.

If you recall, I did a live interview—yes, streamed live on the Web—last year with Athenahealth honcho Jonathan Bush, beers in hand, for the Health Innovation Broadcast Consortium that Masters and Salber were involved in. (I don’t know the status of that project, as there’s nothing new on that site since last July.) So of course I said yes, and I think it went pretty well. Well, there were a couple of hiccups, as in me thinking we needed to wrap up earlier than we actually had to. And then there’s this:

 

Followed by this:

 

Yes, the Twitterverse catches everything.

Now about that facial injury. I think I just need to avoid Orlando. In 2011, the last time HIMSS met here, I needed six stitches above my right eye after I banged my face against the edge of the bathtub in my hotel room. As I arrived for the 2008 conference here, I turned on my phone after landing and got the message that my grandfather had passed away. Just for good measure, I passed through Orlando on my way back from Europe in 2009. As the flight pulled to the gate, the skies opened up with a violent summer thunderstorm, prompting the airport to close the ramp, preventing the ground crew from unloading bags for nearly an hour. I was stuck in the no-man’s land of U.S. Customs for that whole time, where cell phones are prohibited. It was not until I cleared security, took the airport tram to a different terminal, then hustled to the gate that I knew I would make my connecting flight. So yeah, it’s become a pattern.

Anyway, speaking of Jonathan Bush, he is not at HIMSS14 because he is on sabbatical to write a book and who knows what else? Well, here’s a clue. He was spotted at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, last week with his more famous brother, Billy, host of “Access Hollywood.” (Hat tip to HIStalk for showing this video at HIStalkapalooza Monday night.)

I also heard that Bush is considering a run for political office of some kind, perhaps because it’s, you know, the family business. Anyone care to confirm this?

I do know for a fact that at least one HIMSS attendee is actually seeking office. That would be Dr. Steven Daviss, CMIO of startup M3 Information, maker of a mental health screening app called My M3. Daviss is running for Democratic Central Committee in Baltimore this year. If he wins, he plans on seeking a seat in the Maryland House of Delegates in 2018, in part because he says there is only one other physician among the state legislature.

Daviss himself is on sabbatical from his job as chairman of psychiatry at the University of Maryland’s Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie, Md.

February 25, 2014 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

My HIMSS agenda

After a couple of weeks of uncertainty, I now know I will be covering HIMSS for MedCity News. A lot of vendors and PR firms have of course pitched me for meetings, and the reality is, I’ve not always found vendor meetings all that interesting. In fact, the absolute worst thing about the annual HIMSS conference—and I’ve covered every one since 2002—is the few weeks beforehand, when I’m trying to juggle my schedule.

I have occasionally double-booked or simply forgotten to enter appointments into my calendar, but these things do happen when you are juggling dozens if not hundreds of e-mails, you don’t have a secretary and, oh, by the way, have regular work to do a the same time. Sometimes I’ve scrambled to change appointments up to the moment I get on the plane. It’s just a mess most of the time because of the sheer volume of requests and the need to fit it into my normal routine. (Interestingly, and scarily, it’s similar to how healthcare often operates, and mistakes made in healthcare can be deadly.)

The bottom line is, there are more than 1,200 vendors at HIMSS these days, and there is one of me. I can maybe meet with 10-12 of them over the five days of HIMSS, counting Sunday and Thursday, and most of the vendors have gone home by Wednesday evening. One thing a I’ve found is that lot of vendors don’t understand that there are also more than 300 educational sessions to choose from; HIMSS doesn’t just happen in the zoo known as the exhibit hall. I tend to find a lot of great stories from those sessions, so I make them a priority.

Anyway, I have about 10 stories to do for MedCity News during and immediately after HIMSS, and some have fairly specific requirements. (I also have to find time to, you know, write the stories. Sometimes, it’s a trade-off between covering a session/meeting with a vendor and doing my work. Doing the work necessarily wins. Two years ago in Las Vegas, I had to cancel two or three vendor meetings after CMS and ONC dropped the proposed Meaningful Use Stage 2 rules during a town hall-style session. If you recall, the thousands of people trying to download the proposal all but crashed the public Wi-Fi network at the Venetian.)

Two stories are about companies I discover at the new Startup Showcase. If you’re among the startups on display there, let me know. I’ve got one story to do on the Intelligent Hospital Pavilion and another on the Interoperability Showcase. I’ll probably just spend an hour or so walking through and asking questions, but if you’re there and think you have a compelling angle for me, I’m listening.

That’s four stories right there. Three more are from coverage of specific sessions, so those are already booked. I’ve also got three opinion/analysis pieces to write in the week after the fact, and I’m pretty flexible on those. I’m just going to see what I discover and what jumps out at me. A theme usually emerges by the second day.

Away from the madness, I will be at the fifth annual New Media Meetup on Tuesday evening, Feb. 25, hosted by the one and only John Lynn, who also hosts this very blog as part of the Healthcare Scene network. It’s free, but there is limited space, so you do need to preregister.

I will see you in Orlando in a little more than a week.

 

February 14, 2014 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

Loudmouth patients, in their own words

The video from the Digital Health Summit session, “Loudmouth Patients: Making Noise and Making Change,” that I moderated in January has been posted. It was a lively, fascinating discussion involving: empowered patient Hugo Campos; Donna Cryer, CEO of the Global Liver Institute (and a liver transplant recipient herself); and Greg Matthews, group director of  interactive and social media at WCG.

Unfortunately, one long-winded questioner from the audience took up all the Q&A time (and I initially mistook her for Bettina Experton of Humetrix), so some things went unanswered. If you have any questions for the participants, post them in the comments below and I will attempt to get the panelists to answer.

This discussion took place Jan. 8 at the Digital Health Summit at International CES in Las Vegas.

In case you missed it, here are some post-session interviews with Campos, Matthews and myself.

February 13, 2014 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

OpenNotes, changing roles in health IT and a Friday, um, funny

I’ve just had two new stories published on the US News & World Report Hospital of Tomorrow site: “OpenNotes Helps Keep Patients Informed and Engaged” and “The Evolution of Health IT Continues.” The latter is subtitled, “New roles signal new realities and priorities as hospital information technology changes,” and goes in depth and the changes underway in hospital HIS and HIM departments in response to various healthcare reform imperatives. I’d appreciate your feedback here, on the U.S. News pages and on Twitter.

Since it’s Friday, I’ll share something offbeat. I’ll let you decide if it’s a good idea or a gimmick. Nestlé Fitness has created the “Tweeting Bra,” with a Bluetooth-enabled sensor that sends a tweet every time the wearer unhooks the undergarment, reminding women daily of the importance of breast self-exams. Here’s a video, in Greek with English subtitles.

 

If you want more information, here’s a short interview with the keeper of the Tweeting Bra, Maria Bakodimus, a Greek celebrity. It’s only in Greek, without subtitles, but it does show the sensors in more detail.

If you want to get one, well, sorry.

 


It was a one-off prototype created for Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October.

February 7, 2014 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

Digital Health Summit videos: Loudmouth patients

As I noted last week, I moderated a panel at the Digital Health Summit at International CES on “loudmouth patients.” Aside from a slight technical glitch in which the “Seinfeld” clip I shared here didn’t play during the presentation and me misidentifying an audience questioner, it was, IMHO, one of the best sessions of the two-day conference. As the moderator, I owe that to my panelists.

Hugo Campos and Donna Cryer told their compelling stories, while Greg Matthews discussed some new research he did, looking for patterns in online physician-patient interactions.

Afterward, video producer Tim Reha pulled each of us aside to chat on camera for “Digital Health Summit Live” interviews. I talked, possibly awkwardly, about what the other panelists said during the session, then they told their own stories in far more detail and precision than I could offer. I have to say I deftly positioned myself as an empowered, loudmouth patient myself. My physicians, consider yourself warned.

 

Here’s Campos discussing his compelling story:

 

And Matthews explains his research:

If any video of Cryer surfaces, I will be sure to add it.

January 13, 2014 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

Sermo apologizes for ‘misinterpretation’

On Friday, I called out physician social network Sermo for its “Pro Football Injury Challenge.” Someone fr0m the company was watching, even over the weekend, because Sermo put up a response on its blog on Sunday, apologizing for “insensitive language” in the original e-mail that led to, as the unnamed blogger put it, an “unfortunate misinterpretation” that “we were asking doctors to predict future player injuries.”

According to Sermo, the Pro Football Injury Challenge “was intended solely for physicians to aggregate data like the PBS study performed last pro football season, which exposed and quantified the true magnitude of player injuries in the NFL.” The post continued:

The focus of this Challenge is to aggregate physician opinion around injury recovery, with  frank supporting discussions on trending topics in the sport (e.g., concussions) being hosted on Sermo.  By collecting physician opinion on how concussions (in the aggregate) are trending in pro football, we are complementing and expanding the clinical discussion prior to the upcoming PBS Special, League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis.  Contrary to what has been reported, we have not nor would we ever design a game that rewards predictions of injury or illness to any individual, nor are we seeking to exploit, de-humanize or profit from these patients, their loved ones or their caregivers.

The rationale behind the Challenge is, has been, and will be to help decrease the number, severity and recurrence of all sports-related of injuries by eliciting physicians’ opinions on proper injury recovery periods and methods.

OK, Sermo, you have earned the benefit of the doubt for now. I hope the physician community holds you to your word.

 

September 22, 2013 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

DrChrono and Sermo, what are you thinking?

Free, mobile ambulatory EHR developer DrChrono made a minor ripple of news this week, claiming to be the first vendor to release an EHR for the new Apple iOS 7. But that’s not why I’m writing this post. I’m calling out DrChrono co-founder and COO Daniel Kivatinos for this tweet:

I was quick to respond on Twitter.  


Indeed, the HITECH Act and Meaningful Use are about the Triple Aim of producing safer care, improving population health and lowering overall healthcare costs. The incentive money isn’t supposed to make physicians rich or even cover the cost of the typical EHR. (Yes, “free” EHRs have costs in terms of changing physician workflows and interfacing with practice management systems, and the advertising may cause patients to lose trust in their doctors, as John Lynn seems to have found with Practice Fusion.) Frankly, I don’t want to go to a doctor who views Meaningful Use as “cashing in.” That’s not “meaningful” in the spirit of the incentive program.

I’m making a big deal out of this because this is not the first time DrChrono has made misleading and hyperbolic statements. As I wrote a couple years ago, the company claimed its patient check-in app was “groundbreaking,” despite a lot of evidence to the contrary. The same post also had a video from DrChrono in which the vendor explained to physicians how they could qualify for Meaningful Use “tax breaks.” The incentive payments aren’t tax breaks. In fact, the money counts as taxable income.

The video is still up on YouTube, and it’s been viewed more than 57,000 times. That’s 57,000 times people have heard a patently false statement. DrChrono, stop misleading clients or you won’t have any clients left to mislead.

Also from the “what were they thinking?” department, physician social network Sermo marked the start of the NFL season this month with the launch of the “Pro Football Injury Challenge.” I know this because I received this e-mail:

Sermo injury challenge

Yes, I know I’m not a doctor. Sermo sent a follow-up a few days later saying that I received the invitation in error. But actual physicians still are competing against each other in kind of a fantasy football injury pool. Do you find this as tasteless as I do?

 

September 20, 2013 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.