Of course, we attend conferences to learn, to network, and to benchmark our best-practices against the best in the industry. We are seeing (and hearing) some new things at this year’s HIMSS conference:
* Virtual, paperless sessions with participants typing away- a new sound in conferencing.
* Social media and healthcare – major strides are evident this year, for example:
*******The Mayo Clinic now has a full time social media director who is also presenting here.
*******Think of developing 90-second TV content and spreading it via social media distribution; the Mayo Clinic did this and went from 9000 hits to 74,000 hits on their website in a one-month trial.
*******FLIP videos are being used by Mayo as the primary vehicle for moving/communicating content, saving thousands in real time interviews across healthcare systems.
* Social media is being used to extend word of mouth referrals, speed of connecting, and advance research time exponentially as info can be shared globally.
* New from the Exhibit Hall- synching EMRs across the many devices that MDs are using – office devices, Smartphones, and ipads. MDs represent one of the largest purchasing groups for iPads in their first 6 months in the market.
* Telemedicine units previewed here can count pores on your skn in high resolution and lend themselves to some types of virtual exams.
* e-ICUs housed in data centers can monitor patients remotely in hospitals — personal health ID cards with insurance, medical hx, provider, and $ all tied together.
More to come…
