I must admit that the thing I probably wanted to see most on the HIMSS exhibit floor was these washable keyboards. I can’t tell you how many times my nurses have asked for a way to wash their keyboards. Plus, it didn’t hurt that I had a way to get a free washable keyboard for myself too.

You can check out the washable keyboards I found from Econo-keys at their website. They have some pretty creative products when it comes to keeping keyboards clean. I tried out the typing myself and didn’t have any problem adapting to the keyboard. I thought it might be a challenge, but it wasn’t. Ok, enough of my talk, check out this video showing off the product and then read to the bottom for the free giveaway:

This video coverage of HIMSS 10 sponsored by Practice Fusion and their Free EMR.

The best news of all is that I was able to convince the good people at Econo Keys to give me a couple extra free washable keyboards to give away on EMR and HIPAA. Yes, that’s right. Your very own free washable keyboard.

In order to enter to win, all you have to do is promote EMR and HIPAA in some way. Maybe you tweet a link, maybe you link to EMR and HIPAA from your blog. Maybe you link to it from an EMR group on LinkedIn. Maybe you’ll be more creative than I. Just let me know what you did to promote the site in the comments and I’ll choose a couple winners from there.

7 more videos from HIMSS on the way shortly.

I’m really interested in trying to differentiate between the 300+ EMR vendors lately. Not to mention understanding what innovations will shape the EMR markets going forward. More on the second subject later. The first one has become even more important to me since tomorrow I plan on launching an e-book on EMR selection. Thus, I was really intrigued by a blog post by Didier Thizy from macadamian entitled, “Electronic Medical Records – 3 Key Differentiators”

In the post, he says that he’d stump EMR vendors at HIMSS 10 the following questions:
“With so many major EMR competitors out there, what is your product’s differentiator?” “What makes you stand out from the crowd?”

It’s interesting, because I asked a number of EMR vendors similar questions. Didier offers the following three answers which are NOT EMR differentiators:

• “Our EMR has been an industry standard for 20 years”
• “Our EMR is SaaS-based”
• “Our EMR is CCHIT certified”

He then offers 3 “Real” EMR differentiators:

• “Our EMR has excellent UI and usability”
• “Our EMR is designed for a particular specialty”
• “Our EMR’s technology makes the user’s life easier”

I like his 3 differentiators. I’m going to think about this and allow people to comment and then add some differentiators of my own. However, I think one problem with this list is that you need to also provide a method for measuring these differentiators. It’s easy for every EMR vendor to say that they have great usability. It’s a much harder thing to really make it usable.

In one of my many discussions with people at HIMSS 10 we started talking about EHR interoperability standards. The person I was talking to worked as an engineer for a vendor that’s entire work is interoperability of EHR data. As we talked, I made the comment that it seems like CCD has won the battle for EMR interoperability. He gave me a kind of blank stare and said, yeah. Basically his response was like yeah everyone knows that. Almost as if there weren’t any other real EMR interoperability options out there. Well, I guess someone better let Google Health know too.

As I went through the HIMSS showroom floor, I got the same feeling.

The good thing is that I think the people behind CCR are satisfied with this result since CCD is a derivative of sorts from CCR.

I saw someone else do something like this and so I thought it would be fun to do a post talking about the best and worst parts of HIMSS. So, here we go.

Best Session
No doubt the ONC town hall was one of the most popular sessions and for good reason. The place was packed with standing room only. It was kind of neat to be there when they announced that the final rule on EHR certification bodies was just posted. It was interesting to see them filter the questions from the audience, but there was some interesting information gleaned from the town hall.

Best Party
I think there’s little doubt that the MEDecision party at the Aquarium was the best party at HIMSS. The location was amazing. Colbie Caillat was perfect entertainment. The food was the best I ate in Atlanta. The place was packed, but not so much so that you couldn’t move. The New Media part of that event was even better since we had a nice quiet place to network and eat the food on actual flatware. Definitely a highlight of my evenings at HIMSS.

Most Overused Term
I’d say HIE wins this category. The discussion around Health Information was intense. Although, it’s a mess of people trying to conquer this incredible challenge.

Best Giveaway
A lot of people were talking about the yellow slippers from one of the vendors. I wanted to get some, but they were out when I made it there. So, anyone that runs out can’t win this award. So, I’ll give it to Econo-keys for handing out the washable keyboards. I have 3-4 of them, so I’ll be giving them away when I post the video I did of them. They’re really cool.

Best Party Companions
I had a great time hanging out with the people from MedicExchange, Dermanaut and the 2 ladies I’m too lazy to find on twitter but were fun to be around. Great time together.

Best Booth
OnBase (or something like that) had this amazing booth/bar that looked like a baseball stadium. It was unreal.

Best Keynote
Not sure any of the keynotes were all that impressive. Blumenthal’s was so so with a nice story at the beginning. Sully made a compelling argument for more safety procedures in healthcare. So, I guess I’ll give it to Sully.

Wildest Party
I’d have to say the HISTalk party was pretty intense. Between the sashes, the crowded quarters and Jon Bush of Athena Health on stage that place was pretty crazy. Lots of amazing people there though.

Worst Hotel
Some people hated the Holiday Inn, but the hotel I was in, the Country Inn and Suites, had to be the worst. Their were stains on the floor, the bed linens sucked and most importantly 3 of the 4 nights I had to convince the front desk staff to restart the router so that the unsecured wireless would work for me. Worst hotel I’ve stayed in I think.

Best Technology No One’s Heard Of
MModal’s natural language recognition was outstanding. I have a short video of them telling their story. I’ll post it soon so more people can know about this really interesting technology. Nuance must be a little nervous (although they announced the purchase of a similar technology).

Tomorrow I’ve scheduled the first of my topical posts from HIMSS. First up is one of my readers favorite subjects: CCHIT.

Once again, you can go and check out many of the tweets I did during my various activities at HIMSS on my two twitter accounts: @techguy and @ehrandhit.

The day started with the Blumenthal keynote. I can’t say that he really said anything earth shattering. It was a bit interesting to hear an overview of his perspectives. However, my favorite part of his speech was his opening story about how he got involved in healthcare IT and the time when he was a doctor and his EMR saved him from making a major medical mistake. It was really smart of him to tell a story like this. He also had some really good one liners (see my twitter accounts) that indicate his goals. So, I guess the David Blumenthal HIMSS keynote wasn’t completely meaningless.

Then, the rest of the afternoon was fantastic since I was able to spend almost the entire rest of the day roaming the floor. I had a number of interviews with vendors on the floor, but it was nice to just be able to be on the floor and learning in the booths. I think that some people don’t like it, but I really like browsing through the mayhem. I love seeing the message people are trying to send. I won’t go into all the details of people I talked to, but will be posting about them over the next couple weeks. I did get a number of videos that I think people will really enjoy.

I will just quickly mention the coolest swag I got. One place was handing out candy bars. I love chocolate so that was a big deal. Practice Fusion was fantastic since they treated me like a rock star for some reason and they gave me a cool jersey shirt. Very nicely done. I also got a $25 amazon gift certificate from Nuance thanks to seeing a tweet to go to their booth. Twitter definitely pays off.

However, the best giveaway I got was the Econo-keys completely waterproof keyboards. Yes, that’s right. You can actually clean these keyboards. The best news about this free swag is that I got a few of these keyboards to give away to readers of this site. So, watch for the video of these keyboards and an opportunity to get your own washable, flexible keyboard. They’re super cool.

Ok, enough about the swag. Sorry if you don’t like these summary posts. I’ll plan on posting more substantive posts tomorrow. For now, I’m going to bed. 15 hour days wear you out.

Today was a much more laid back day at HIMSS. I still had pretty much back to back meetings, but I’m learning little by little to manage the day at HIMSS. It’s still a work in progress, but I’m getting closer to managing this HUGE event.

In kind of a surprise meeting, I had a chance to sit down and talk with Shahid from The Healthcare IT Guy. We had a really good chat and I can see us working on a number of projects together. It’s been really interesting to meet people in person that you’ve only ever known online. A few times I’ve come away disappointed, but the opposite was true with Shahid. I couldn’t be more impressed with Shahid.

I had a number of really interesting interviews today and a meeting with the CMO of Verizon to talk about an interesting medical data exchange that they’re working on. It was really interesting to hear the vision of what Verizon and the group behind it are doing to make healthcare data exchangeable. I’ll be posting a lot more on this in the future, but you can see my original post about this consortium for some initial information. I have a video talking about the consortium and another video talking about the really neat technology behind MModal.

I also had a nice media lunch from HP. The food was great. The content was a little weak, but their talk of the thin clients was pretty useful for me in my day job. Little by little I’ve been getting more and more convinced that thin clients will be the future of desktop management. At least in any reasonably sized implementation.

Oh yes, and I have to mention the most incredibly tacky part of the lunch. While they were speaking, one of the media people’s phone rang. Not only did they not turn off the ringer, but he then proceeded to answer the phone in the middle of the meeting and was talking on the phone while the person was presenting. Then, after the call he got up and left. I was totally shocked that he really did that. Unbelievable!!

However, the event of the day without a doubt was the ONC town hall. It started off with David Blumenthal announcing that the details of accrediting the EHR certifying bodies (officially the NPRM on certification) were just released. You can find the details posted on the HHS website. I’ll be posting a lot more about this soon. ONC did a pretty lengthy question and answer and even a powerpoint on the new accreditation for EHR certifications. I’ll cover those details very soon.

I also met one of the people behind Fierce Health IT and talked about possibly working together on something. They really went all out to kind of make a splash at HIMSS and I must admit that they’ve come along way since they first started.

Lots of other things, but I better get to bed so I can make the Blumenthal keynote tomorrow.

After last night’s great New Media Meetup Kick off event, I’m really excited for the other 2 New Media Meetups that I’ve put together. I can’t wait to meet some more people since I only met a few of the people at the event last night. Plus, we’re giving away some really cool stuff at these events.

Here are the times and locations of the New Media Meetups:
Mix and Mingle Sponsored by MxSecure
Tuesday 3/2/10 at 4:00PM
Location: MModal booth 1157
Giveaway: iPod Touch

Mix and Mingle Sponsored by Pervasive
Wednesday 3/3/10 at 10:00AM
Location: Pervasive booth 2545
Giveaway: Wii

Feel free to leave a comment if you plan to be there. I’m looking forward to networking with more people and also learning about some of the must see vendors at HIMSS.

I’ve survived my second day of HIMSS. This is my first time to HIMSS and so I must admit that I’m a bit overwhelmed. Plus, it’s the first time I’ve been to a conference as “media.” I must admit that it’s really nice to be media at HIMSS. You get access to some things that you don’t normally get to access. Plus, the media room with food and internet has been great since I haven’t had time to breathe, let alone eat.

The problem I’ve had is that there just isn’t enough time while I’m there to write too much content. Plus, it gives me no time to really process the content. So, if you want my latest updates about HIMSS, you can find them on my EMR twitter page.

I went to town on Twitter during the CCHIT town hall. It should give you a good flavor for what the town hall was like. I’m sure I’ll take many of those tweets and make it into a post later. Tomorrow watch Twitter during the ONC town hall. That should be another good one. Also, the John Halamka session will probably be another good Twitter time for me.

Otherwise, the big events for me today was the “Meet the Bloggers” panel which was quite interesting. The coolest part was meeting the readers of this blog in person and also some of the bloggers that I’ve read as well. What’s pretty neat is when someone comes up to me and says, I read you. If you think about it, I have very little idea who actually reads what I write. So, it’s neat to see some actual people talk about your work.

I was also quite happy with how the New Media Meetup at the MEDecision party at the Aquarium went. The venue was fantastic, the food was even better and the people there were even better. My only problem was that I wish that we’d had more time. Although, Colbie Callait was on stage so I didn’t want to miss her either. It was a tough challenge to have. I do like partnering like this and it was nice to meet the people behind MEDecision as well. They are working on an industry model for HIE. I have a feeling their quietly going to be entering the HIE space in a big way.

Lots and lots more I could talk about. However, I’m going to go ahead and save those for future posts (likely next week). No need to overwhelm you with posts. We have plenty of time. I will tell you that I got 2 videos today of Evan Steele, CEO of SRSsoft and also Dr. Doug Fridsma from ONC about the NHIN and CONNECT. I wanted to post it tonight, but since the internet was down in my hotel it will have to be tomorrow or the next day. Something to look forward to.

Tomorrow there’s a lot on my agenda. The John Halamka and ONC sessions that I mentioned previously, a couple more EMR vendor interviews and of course another HIMSS New Media meetup from 4-5 at the MModal booth 1157 sponsored by MxSecure. Come win a free iPod touch at the meetup. Man, it’s going to be another full day. At least tomorrow I think I have an hour or so to check out the floor a little bit.

The interoperability showcase is a really interesting part of HIMSS. They have 80 organizations and vendors that are participating in a wide variety of interoperability scenarios. It’s such a great idea to bring these vendors together to show interoperable EMR.

The problem I have with this concept is that they had the same showcase at HIMSS 09, no? Have we seen any real progress towards interoperability? I guess the question is a bit open for debate, but I can’t say that I’ve seen any huge progress towards interoperability since the last showcase. Is that because there are political and funding issues that are blocking the interoperability from happening?

I guess the point is that the interoperability showcase seems to show that interoperability is possible from a technical standpoint, but it must be something else that’s stopping its success.

Does that mean that we’re focusing on the wrong problem (the technical) when it comes to EMR Interoperability?

Well, I must admit that I’m a bit overwhelmed by everything I’ve seen and heard at HIMSS 10 in Atlanta. This thing is enormous. Although, I think I’m also trying to overcome the lack of sleep. Taking the Red-Eye from Las Vegas was the right choice, but I’m paying the price today for not having much sleep. Not that any of you really care.

What I’ve quickly realized is that I’ve over scheduled my time at HIMSS. This really isn’t too much of a problem for me since I LOVE being busy. The only problem with it is that it means that I won’t be able to create nearly as much content from the show as I’d like to create.

No worries though, I’m taking good notes and I’ll have plenty of great content to share with you over the next few weeks after HIMSS as well as during HIMSS. I have posted quite a few updates on my twitter account, @ehrandhit, and plan to do a lot more. Take a look through my updates to see some interesting items I heard during a briefing.

As I’ve talked with people at the conference, as expected, the EMR stimulus, meaningful use, certified EHR and everything related to those subjects is the main focus of discussion. I think that’s actually exciting. It’s a topic that everyone is kind of unified around. It creates a nice energy at the conference and is a topic that you can talk about with anyone.

Interoperability is also a really major discussion at this conference. I’m not sure how much real progress has been made, but there’s a lot of talk. I know I’m interested in a meeting I have setup with a person at ONC that works on the NHIN and CONNECT. I’m looking forward to hearing what he has to say.

Another interesting thing will be all the false information related to the EMR stimulus. It’s amazing how many professionals in the industry don’t even understand the details of the EMR stimulus. This is a problem and could have some ugly consequences down the road.

Watch for some more specific coverage of the conference tomorrow. Tomorrow is a very full day for me with some really exciting events including: the CCHIT town hall meeting, my Meet the Bloggers Session, an interview with one of my favorite EMR CEO bloggers, Evan Steele, and then of course the New Media Kick Off Event tomorrow night.

The CCHIT town hall should be quite lively since you know how much I love them. I’m thinking I might try and live blog it, or at least lots of tweets about the event.