Hmmms at HIMSS 2010 (What I Learned) – Part 1
Let me start off with the facts: I’m not really a big fan of keynote addresses; 8 a.m. is an awful early start time, particularly if you make 30 or so wrong turns in downtown Atlanta on the way to said keynote; and the views expressed here are entirely my own (no one else has any interest in taking credit for them).
What’s HIMSS? HIMSS is where all the healthcare IT and operations folks hang out once a year to share notes, transfer knowledge, see the latest/greatest technology and do their small part to contribute to rising healthcare costs. (Important side note: DON’T schedule elective surgery during HIMSS week – if one of the computers you’re hooked up to breaks, there won’t be anyone there to fix it.)
Sprint CEO Dan Hesse gave the opening keynote, and with full knowledge that this will sound like the ultimate suck-up, he blew the crowd away. Contemporaneously, I thought his presentation was good, but then I knew what he was talking about (M2M, 4G, etc.) and understood the capabilities of this technology. I didn’t realize until later – when I was out on the exhibit floor – the impact a lot of his comments had on the SRO audience. I think this group of technologists was just astounded by the whole 4G thing and the possibilities created by fast, reliable, and mobile M2M communications. They had no idea that the bandwidth and throughput Dan described was available NOW.
Some of the more interesting factoids that came out of Dan’s speech included:
• Chronic conditions (obesity, diabetes, etc.) account for 85 percent of health care dollars and that percentage is increasing;
• The healthcare industry spends only two to three percent of revenue on IT, compared with other industries, where six to eight percent is typical;
• If patients suffering from chronic conditions let their doctors monitor them wirelessly, it would cut $21 billion per year from our healthcare spending through reduced hospitalization and nursing home costs. (Side note: I spoke to one vendor that had a remote monitoring solution that used AT&T’s 3G network … would you bet your life on it?)
This blog is supposed to be about convergence. One thing I learned on day one at HIMSS is that no industry needs it more critically than healthcare – convergence across networks, disparate systems, and unlimited geography.
In part 2, I’ll report on snow in Atlanta, drinks at the W, the 802.11 meltdown at the World Congress Center, and Overdrive envy.
Email
Bookmark
Digg
Tweet This
SubscribeTags: 4G, Dan Hesse, electronic medical records, HIMSS, telehealth, telemedicine
