Inside the books of HIMSS
The lengthy post on Monday about the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology included a discussion about whether CCHIT and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society are perhaps too closely aligned. That got me thinking: I recall seeing a report last year that gave a peek inside the books of HIMSS for fiscal year 2006.
That report appeared in the Jan. 21, 2008, issue of Inside Healthcare Computing, the most insightful health IT publication nobody knows about. It’s only available via paid subscription, and either in 8.5″ x 11″ newsletter format or PDF equivalent, so the daily health IT news aggregation services that so many people rely on rarely if ever refer to it.
However, I’m an occasional contributor, so I was able to get the permission of editor and publisher Cathe Schwartz to reprint the article. HIMSS boss Steve Lieber even consented to an interview for the story. You won’t find any discussion about CCHIT there, but you will enjoy the story. You probably will learn a thing or two from it.
Perhaps Inside Healthcare Computing will earn a paid subscriber or two from this post. That potentially would mean more work for me. I thank you in advance. :)
If HIMSS filed a loss of $2.3 million for FY06, why did the board of directors REWARD Lieber with a 13 percent raise from FY05 with his total compensation $535,810? Their organization is a 501(c)(6) tax-exempt NFP, yet Lieber’s total compensation is 44 percent abovethe median? Does this raise any eyebrows? Not many doctors receive this salary! Maybe he was rewarded for creating CCHIT.