Trends from the HIMSS Floor

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS18) Conference and Exhibition was held last month in Vegas, and brought together nearly 44,000 members of the health IT community.

Associate Editor Jeff Zagoudis covered HIMSS for the ITN team, and reported back on trends he observed. “Radiology is just one piece of the 1,000-piece puzzle that is today’s connected healthcare environment,” he summarized. “For me, HIMSS reinforced the idea of the healthcare team that includes everyone from doctors to vendors to IT administrators to patients themselves — each play a role in keeping patients healthy. And we now are able to gather enough data to try to keep patients healthy 24/7/365, even when they are not in front of their doctors. The possibilities are exciting, but we’re still figuring out how to practically do it.”

Other notable trends included artificial intelligence (AI), clinical decision support (CDS) and interoperability/productivity. “By melding clinical decision support with AI, clinicians can help identify at-risk patient populations to promote timely, proactive care plans and/or adjust in-hospital procedures,” he stated. “Essentially, CDS could be a very powerful tool for practicing population health management.”

Professional Accolades

ITN was recently named a 2018 Azbee Award finalist in five Upper Midwest Regional categories and two national categories. The annual Azbee Awards are hosted by the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) to recognize editorial and design excellence in the business, trade and specialty press.

ITN is an Azbee Regional Award finalist in:

• Online Enterprise News Story: Oncology Information Systems Need to Integrate
• Online Video — News: Technology Report: Enterprise Imaging
• Online Trade Show/Conference Coverage: ITN Use of Social Media for Show Coverage
• Regular Column, Contributed: The Last Read Series
• Print Single Topic Coverage by a Team: October 2017 issue

ITN is also a national Azbee Award finalist for Online Video — News: Technology Report: Enterprise Imaging and Regular Column, Contributed: The Last Read Series.

Regional and national award winners will be announced in May.