This Geek Girl’s Singing: HIMSS 14 Social Media Finale

As one of the inaugural crop of HIMSS Social Media Ambassadors, a second-generation native Floridian, and a former Orlando resident, it is my sworn duty to summarize, recap, and perhaps satirize the last group of Blog Carnival posts, to metaphorically sing the HIMSS opera finale. And you folks submitted some doozies! I’m very grateful to the HIMSS (@HIMSS) and SHIFT Communications (@SHIFTComm) team for providing me with links to all entries. Y’all have been BUSY!

A man after my own heart, and a frequent #HITsm participant who weathers harsh criticism with witty aplomb: Dan Haley’s (from athenahealth, @DanHaley5) piece on 3 Takeaways From HIMSS – Policy And Otherwise caught my attention with the line, “Regulators are from Mars…” He stole my favorite blog entry prize with the line: “Orlando is magical when you are a kid. Kids don’t attend HIMSS.”

First-time attendee Jeffrey Ting (from Systems Made Simple) outlined his experiences with some of my favorite topics in his piece, HIMSS Reflections By A First-Time Attendee: HIEs and interoperability. I agree with him: the Interoperability Showcase’s “Health Story” exhibit was one of the best presentations of the whole conference.

Dr. Geeta Nayyar’s perspective as a board member of HIMSS and CMIO for PatientPoint gave her a unique vantage point for her post, HIMSS 14: A Truly Inspiring Event. Take note, HIMSS conference planners – your monumental efforts were recognized, as was the monumental spirit of the closing keynote speaker, Erik Weihenmayer.

HIMSS Twitter recaps permeated the blogosphere, with my favorite being the inimitable Chuck Webster’s (@wareflo) HIMSS14 Turned It Up To 11 On And Off-Line!. Chuck also periodically provided trend analysis results of year-over-year #HIMSS hashtag traffic for each period of the conference, complete with memes for particular shapes: Loch Ness monster humped-back, familiar faces of frequent tweeters.

Health IT guru Brian Ahier’s (@ahier) wrapped up the “Best In Show” of HIMSS Blog Carnival , complete with Slideshare visuals awarding Ed Parks of Athenahealth “Best Presentation” and providing an excellent summation of must-read posts.

Interoperability was one of the most prevalent themes of HIMSS, and a plethora of posts discussing the healthcare industry’s progress on the path to Dr. Doug Fridsma’s (@Fridsma) High Jump Of Interoperability (Semantic-Level) were submitted to the Blog Carnival. Notable standouts included: Shifting to a Culture of Interoperability by Rick Swanson from Deloitte, and Dr. Summarlan Kahlon’s (of Relay Health), Diagnosis: A Productive HIMSS 2014, which posited that, “this year’s conference was the first one which convinced me that real, seamless patient-level interoperability is beginning to happen at scale.”

And who could forget about patient engagement, the belle of the HIMSS ball? Telehealth encounters, mobile health apps and implications, patient portals, and the Connected Patient Gallery dominated the social media conversation. Carolyn Fishman from DICOM Grid called it, HIMSS 2014: The Year of the Patient, and discussed trepidation patients feel about portal technologies infringing on face-time.

Quantified-self wearable-tech offered engagement opportunities, as well. Having won one such gadget herself, Jennifer Dennard (@SmyrnaGirl) gave props to organizations like Patientco and Nuance for their use (and planned use) of wearable tech in support of employee wellness programs, and posited on the applications of such tech in the monitoring and treatment of chronic disease in her piece, Watching for Wearables at HIMSS14.

Finally, if you’re able to read Lisa Reichard’s (from Billians Health Data) @billians) highlights piece,Top 10 Tales and Takeaways, without busting out into Beatles tunes, you probably wouldn’t have had nearly as much fun as she and I did at HISTalkapalooza, dancing to Ross Martin’s smooth parodies. You also probably don’t have your co-workers frantically purchasing noise-canceling headphones.

I did say I’d be singing to bring HIMSS to a virtual close.

Can’t wait to get back to the metaphorical microphone for HIMSS 2015 in Chicago!

About the author

Mandi Bishop

Mandi Bishop is a hardcore health data geek with a Master's in English and a passion for big data analytics, which she brings to her role as Dell Health’s Analytics Solutions Lead. She fell in love with her PCjr at 9 when she learned to program in BASIC. Individual accountability zealot, patient engagement advocate, innovation lover and ceaseless dreamer. Relentless in pursuit of answers to the question: "How do we GET there from here?" More byte-sized commentary on Twitter: @MandiBPro.

   

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