Meditech to skip HIMSS

I may be a week behind on this, but I just saw a Feb. 6 announcement that Medical Information Technology, better known as MEDITECH, has decided to pull out of April’s HIMSS conference.

According to the company:

Participating in the annual HIMSS conference has proven to be beneficial to MEDITECH and LSS through the years, as we have been able to renew acquaintances, attract new customers, and showcase new product offerings there. Nonetheless, the current economic climate mandates we pay particular attention to spending resources wisely this year. Just as we encourage customers to make HCIS selections based on value, we too must carefully evaluate our expenses and focus on priorities. For this reason, MEDITECH and LSS will not attend the HIMSS conference this year. Instead we will use communication channels such as our extensive program of regional events, annual workshops, Webex demonstrations, and meditech.com to share information. Using this approach, we will be able to continue sharing information on key topics, control our expenses, and minimize everyone’s costs.

Howard Messing
President and COO, MEDITECH

This comes just days after HIMSS itself touted record pre-registration for the annual conference, despite the terrible economy and the unpredictability of Chicago weather in early April.

This makes MEDITECH the second major vendor to pull out of HIMSS’09. It was widely reported around last year’s conference that Cerner would not have its usual mammoth booth in the HIMSS exhibit hall this time around. I’ve not heard of any reversal of this decision.